This research project seeks to contribute to the scientific foundation of engineering design by developing a conceptual framework that can be used to study, correlate and compare existing engineering design models, which may obtain from widely different perspectives. The resulting framework will consist of a design concept interchange language with rigorous mathematical evaluations. This interchange language will be used to explain the rationales and correlate the concepts used in different models. The mathematical evaluations will be used to explicate underlying assumptions of various design models and to evaluate their validity and limitations. Six to ten engineering design models will be selected from engineering, decision theory, and artificial intelligence fields for this research. The framework will be developed based on the critical review of these selected design models. An interdisciplinary research team, including engineers, mathematicians, and decision theorists, is assembled to develop this framework for engineering design models. Design is the essence of engineering profession; and engineering design has been a topic for researchers from different disciplines. Some of them are from various engineering disciplines, others from decision theory or artificial intelligence fields. Although a number of engineering design models have been proposed to date, little cross reference exists in these models and communication among the researcher has been difficult. It is commonly recognized that the lack of communication among researchers has become a major obstacle for the progress of engineering design research. If successful, the results of this research project will provide a common language and framework for engineering design researchers to share their insights and results in order to identify gaps between the models and directions for the future research.
