• Philosophy is an important concept, because design is basically making inexact decisions, in an unpredictable environment.
• Some basic rules to follow are,
use standard materials, processes, components, fasteners etc. where possible
use looser tolerances where possible
only design what the specifications/function requires
• Typical mechanical design problems can be classified as,
selection design: given certain criteria select a suitable component.
configuration design: how are given components arranged to satisfy given criteria.
parametric design: given a known relationship (equations, graphs, tables, etc.) and constrain (limits, objectives, etc) we can calculate an exact dimension (or other parameter values) for a design.
original design: new concepts must be generated.
redesign: a design must be changed conceptually to obtain better performance.
• This list below can be used to jog thoughts about possible mechanical concepts. [based on Ullman]
1.1 Ullman, D.G., The Mechanical Design Process, McGraw-Hill, 1997.