An Improved Axiomatic Design Approach in Distributed Resource Environment, Part 1: Toward Functional Requirements to Design Parameters Transformation

How to transform Functional Requirements (FRs) into Design Parameters (DPs) plays a key role in using the Axiomatic Design (AD) theory. However, the AD theory does not provide such an approach to support the transformation from FRs to DPs. As the meantime, there is a trend to use internet-based knowledge service in a distributed resource environment to efficiently generate a design concept. The authors aim at developing an improved axiomatic design approach. This approach consists of two parts, part 1 built a new model for the transformation from FRs to DPs in a distributed resource environment; part 2 proposed an achieving algorithm for the generation of Function unit chain sets (FUCSs). The studies are based on a hypothesis that almost all of the FRs can be met by a function unit set. The DPs of each Function Unit (FU) are provided by knowledge service suppliers. In such a distributed resource environment, designers only need to search function units via their inputs and outputs and integrate them into a concept solution to meet a functional requirement. This paper firstly defined the basic definitions of Functional Requirements (FRs), Functions (Fs), Function Units (FUs), Function unit sets (FUSs), Function unit chain sets (FUCSs) and Design Parameters (DPs), then described the transformation process in detail, thirdly, proposed principle forms for calculating the outputs in FUSs, finally, used a case study to illustrate the proposed approach by analyzing the design process of a friction-abrasion testing machine.