A computational model of the mechanical design process

Existing mechanical design computational models have two fundamental drawbacks: partialness and shallowness. They are partial in that only some aspects of the design process are represented, and they are shal low in that the "what" aspect of the design process is often modeled without attaching design rationale to it. This limits their use as a representational tool. This paper proposes a computational model of the entire design process. The model is characterized by: (1) making explicit design constraints, requirements, and qualitative goals, (2) incorporating design procedure (the "what" and "how" aspects of design) with design rationale (the why" aspect of design). This gives the model an advantage in both breadth and depth which makes it a potential representation tool not only for design tasks such as parameter selection, but also for meta-design tasks such as design reuse. The paper also discusses the implementation of the proposed model and describes how the model is applied to a lap-top hinge design as an example.