DI:2.1 BASIC PHILOSOPHY
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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.
