9500046 Balling The focus of this project is on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of engineering design of complex engineering systems. The design of modern engineering systems requires the participation of engineers and others from a wide range of disciplines. Normally, these individuals are not well trained to work together as a multi-disciplinary design team. The purpose of this project is to develop algorithms for efficiently approaching system analysis and design. Specifically, a method is sought whereby a system can be decomposed into disciplinary elements such that design and analysis may proceed within each discipline, independent of the other involved disciplines, and the disciplinary designs then combined and iterated into an optimal or satisfying system design. The approach is to introduce coupling functions, which couple the analyses and designs contributed from the disparate disciplines. Iteration to achieve convergence on the coupling functions is expected to provide an optimally designed system. Research will include the search for robust application methods for the proposed approach and simplification to enable treatment of disciplinary large and complex engineering systems. This research could provide a method for efficiently and effectively engaging disciplinary experts in the process of design. If successful, it could provide an approach to design that leads to more optimal designs in less time than the conventional methods.
