Engineering Design, A Practical Guide

Successful engineering design requires a strong understanding of fundamental concepts in the basic sciences and engineering combined with mathematics. This text provides an introduction to the design tools used in engineering design. It focuses on the first two steps of the design process: determination of need/problem clarification and conceptualization.

In addition, an overview of materials and manufacturing methods is presented. The use of Excel has been incorporated throughout the text for performing routine calculations, leaving more time for the creative aspects of the design process. Finally, the text contains an extensive discussion of systematic concept generation using the theory of inventive problem solving, TRIZ.

1. Engineering Design

1.1 Design

1.2 Engineering Design

1.3 Process Design

1.4 Overview of the Engineering Design Process

1.5 Design Reviews

PART I ENGINEERING DESIGN AIDS

2. Management of the Design Process

2.1 Introduction to Project Management

2.2 Planning and Scheduling (includes discussion of work breakdown structures, design structure matrix, activity networks and Gantt charts). Provides an automated MS Excel-based project management workbook that incorporates all these tools).

2.2 Directing

3. Collaborative Design

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Conceptual Understanding of Teams and Team Development

3.3 Challenges: Conflict Management, Performance and Motivation

3.4 Communication

3.5 Potential Factors Impacting Team Performance

4. Engineering Communication: Reports and Oral Presentations

4.1 Introduction

4.2 The Formal Engineering Report

4.3 Plagiarism

4.4 Report Formats

4.5 Oral Presentations

4.6 Poster Presentations

5. Engineering Communication: Illustration and Solid Modeling

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Introduction to Digital Media

5.3 Technical Sketching and Solid Modeling

5.4 Working Drawings

5.5 Computer Generated Sketches for Documentation

6. Decision Making

6.1 Introduction

6.2 Rank Order: Pairwise Comparison Charts

6.3 Relative Order: Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

6.4 Relative Order: Decision Matrices

PART II THE ENGINEERING DESIGN PROCESS

7. Problem Definition and Determination of Need

7.1 Introduction

7.2 Problem Definition

7.3 Determination of Customer/Client Needs

7.4 Revised Problem Statement

8. Conceptualization I: External Search

8.1 Introduction

8.2 Patents and Patent Searches

8.3 Benchmarking

8.4 Product Dissection

8.5 Biomimicry

9. Conceptualization II: Internal Search and Concept Selection

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Internal Search (Includes discussion on concept generation methods such as brain storming and its variations, Delphi method, synetics, checklists, scamper and morphological charts).

9.3 Concept Selection (Use of Pugh charts and decision matrices)

10. Systematic Innovation with TRIZ

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Simplified Steps for Application of TRIZ tools

10.3 Analyzing the System and its Resources

10.4 The Ideal Final Result

10.5 The 40 Design Principles

10.6 Technical Contradictions and the Contradiction Matrix

10.7 Physical Contradictions

PART III Overview of Materials and Manufacturing

11. Materials and Material Selection

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Materials and Material Selection

11.3 Mechanical Properties of Materials: Stress-Strain

11.4 Typical Mechanical Properties for Material Selection

11.5 Typical Thermal Properties for Material Selection

11.6 Typical Electrical Properties for Material Selection

11.7 Typical Manufacturing Properties for Material Selection

11.8 General Material Categories

11.9 Properties of Common Metals

11.10 Overview of Polymers

11.11 Properties of Common Polymers

11.12 Steps in Material Selection

12. Physical Models and Prototypes

12.1 Introduction

12.2 Rapid Prototyping - An Overview

12.3 Machining

12.4 An Overview of Fastening Methods

13. Commercial Manufacturing Processes

13.1 Manufacturing Processes for Metals - An Overview

13.2 Manufacturing Process for Plastics - An Overview

PART IV GENERAL DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS

14. Green Design

14.1 Introduction: What is Green Design

14.2 Ecological Principles

14.3 Sustainability Metric - Ecological Footprint

14.4 Life Cycle Assessment

15. Engineering Ethics

15.1 What is Engineering Ethics?

15.2 Professional Societies and Codes of Ethics

15.3 Stimulating Moral Imagination

15.4 Recognizing Ethical Issues

15.5 Developing Analytical Skills

15.6 Eliciting a Sense of Responsibility

15.7 Tolerating Disagreement and Ambiguity

PART V APPENDICES

A Creation of Project Management Workbooks in Excel

B Adobe Illustrator 10 Tutorial

C TRIZ: Contradiction Matrices

D NSPE: Codes of Ethics for Engineers

E Component Tables

F Common Unit Conversions

Glossary