Complicating the ‘logic of design’

A ‘logic of design’ was outlined by March in 1976. Since then it has gained wide acceptance among designers and recently has been used in several knowledge-based systems of design. This paper makes a suggestion for extending the model by taking into consideration the logical nature of the laws in the argument form. This focus on the logical nature of laws brings out interesting and subtle differences in the inference process which are lost in the current analysis. It also results in some interesting complications. It means that it is no longer adequate to talk of the three phases of design — performance prediction, knowledge acquisition, and design generation — in the simple categories of deduction, induction and abduction, respectively. In particular, it means that performance prediction is not necessarily (or even usually) a deductive inference.     

Designerly ways of knowing

This is the third paper in a series being published in Design Studies, which aims to establish the theoretical bases for treating design as a coherent discipline of study. The first contribution in the series was from Bruce Archer, in the very first issue of Design Studies, and the second was from Gerald Nadler, in Vol 1, No 5. Further contributions are invited.

Here, Higel Cross takes up the arguments for a ‘third area’ of education—design—that were outlined by Archer. He further defines this area by contrasting it with the other two—sciences and humanities—and goes on to consider the criteria which design must satisfy to be acceptable as a part of general education. Such an acceptance must imply a reorientation from the instrumental aims of conventional design education, towards intrinsic values. These values derive from the ‘designerly ways of knowing’. Because of a common concern with these fundamental ‘ways of knowing’, both design research and design education are contributing to the development of design as a discipline.     

Design of texture for improved formability of high-strength steel

The effect of crystallographic textures on the formability of BCC steel sheets has been studied by using crystalline plasticity finite element analysis (FEA) and experiments. It was confirmed that one of the important reasons why the conventional high-strength steel sheet has poor formability was due to lack of {111} fiber texture components —γ-fiber texture—. In this paper, a texture adjusted design method is proposed to improve the formability of conventional high-strength steel sheets. First, an artificial γ-fiber texture is defined in terms of a rotationally symmetric Gaussian distribution of deviation angles, which has a certain scatter width along the given γ-fiber skeleton line in Euler space. The analytic textures are designed by introducing the artificial γ-fiber texture into the conventional high-strength steel model. The blending coefficient corresponding to the {111}/{001} volume fraction ratio is selected as the design parameter. Then, an optimum crystallographic texture of steel sheet is found through the limit dome height (LDH) formability tests by employing as objective function, which is evaluated by a maximum thinning ratio of the deformed sheet. Further, it is demonstrated that the sheet with the optimum texture shows the best straining in VDI benchmark stamping tests.     

TREE-EXPERT: a tree-based expert system for fault tree construction

This paper addresses the topic of automatic fault tree construction, utilizing an expert system with Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques and presents the related software tool, TREE-EXPERT—an expert system for automatic fault tree construction. In the light of the features involved in developing a fault tree, a new and more reasonable structure of knowledge representation, which is knowledge tree based, has been established. The knowledge tree provides the means by which component failure behaviors can be described by a group of particular fault tree modules instead of production rules. By introducing the conditional branch function, the new design of the knowledge base incorporates many good features such as strong expressivity, flexibility and ease of extension and it takes advantage of the user's familiarity with the field of fault tree analysis. Additionally, the design of the inference engine is original in that it deals with nodes, which it treats, as special components, so that many complicated engineering cases, such as the application of success criteria, and the problems of flow diversions and flow reversals in a process system, can be well managed and the function of the expert system is improved as a whole. TREE-EXPERT can be used to deal with large-scale and complicated engineering systems, and many engineering factors can be considered, e.g. more than one system parameter and the effect on them switching of the system operating states, bi-directional inference, human error failure, common-cause failure, maintenance and test, etc. On the other hand, the software uses P & ID (Pipe & Instrument Diagram) type interface to describe the system topology, which provides an easier man-machine interface with powerful graphics functions. This software can handle not only ‘process’ systems but also, with appropriate additions to the generic knowledge base, electrical systems and other similar systems.     

Design Support Using Distributed Web-Based AI Tools

Currently, designers are faced with searching through a ‘sea’ of on-line knowledge to support their decision making activities. This paper describes WebCADET, which is a reimplementation of the stand-alone CADET – a Knowledge-Based System (KBS) for product design evaluation. WebCADET aims to provide effective and efficient support for designers during their searches for design knowledge. WebCADET uses the ‘AI as text’ approach, where KBSs can be seen as a medium to facilitate the communication of design knowledge between designers. The development of WebCADET to include practical support via World Wide Web-based functionality, which illustrates the potential of the ‘AI as text’ approach, is described in the paper.     

Mapping function to failure mode during component development

When designing aerospace systems, it is essential to provide crucial failure information for failure prevention. Failure modes and effects types of analyses and prior engineering knowledge and experience are commonly used to determine the potential modes of failures a product might encounter during its lifetime. When new products are being considered and designed, this knowledge and information is expanded upon to help designers extrapolate based on their similarity with existing products and the potential design tradeoffs. In this work, we aim to enhance this process by providing design-aid tools which derive similarities between functionality and failure modes. Specifically, this paper presents the theoretical foundations of a matrix-based approach to derive similarities that exist between different failure modes, by mapping observed failure modes to the functionality of each component, and applies it to a simple design example. The function–failure mode method is proposed to design new products or redesign existing ones with solutions for functions that eliminate or reduce the potential of a failure mode. Electronic Publication     

Design method and scientific method

A recurring theme in recent design theory has been a desire to relate design method to scientific method: to create the ‘science of design’ or a ‘design science’. There is an inherent paradox in such a desire since design and science are clearly very dissimilar kinds of activities. Further, the concept of ‘scientific method’ now seems to be in epistemological chaos. For these reasons, attempts to model design method on scientific method seem misplaced. It is proposed that it would be more fruitful to regard design as a technology, rather than as a science. The paper seeks to establish the basis for such a view, drawing especially on the idea that both design and technology involve the application of types of knowledge other than the purely ‘scientific’ kind.     

Automation of Aqueous Film Coating

Among the major manufacturing segments of a pharmaceutical dry products department, coating—to a much larger extent than granulating and tableting—has been at the forefront of the quest for productivity, and hence, the earliest target for automation. Among the reasons for this situation, the following factors can be cited: Coating is a repetitive, labor-intensive, batch process; it is an “inexact” process, to be formalized and disciplined; it is easy to computerize, as it is slow; its control strategies are simple and well understood.     

A practical guide to high-temperature alloys

The requirement for materials which can operate at ever-higher service temperatures continues. Corrosion problems are a limiting factor and have been countered by improvements in material compositions, coating procedures and fabrication techniques. Existing high-temperature alloys are reviewed, leading to a discussion of their performance in a variety of corrosion environments — oxidation, sulfidation, hot corrosion, fuel ash corrosion, carburisation and halogen attack are considered. Options are given for each environment but it is emphasised that material selection cannot be separated from consideration of other factors of the high-temperature system, including process control and better overall design specifications.     

Wertheim's hypothesis on 'highway hypnosis': empirical evidence from a study on motorway and conventional road driving

This paper aims to study the phenomenon known as ‘highway hypnosis’ or ‘driving without attention mode’, which has been defined as a state showing sleepiness signs and attention slip resulting from driving a motor vehicle for a long period in a highly predictable environment with low event occurrence, this being the case with motorways and very familiar roads [Highway hypnosis: a theoretical analysis. In: Gale, A.G., Brown, I.D., Haslegrave, C.M., Moorhead, I., Taylor, S. (Eds.), Vision in Vehicles-III. Elsevier, North-Holland, pp. 467–472]. According to Wertheim’s hypothesis on ‘highway hypnosis’, long-term driving on motorways and conventional roads, e.g. main roads, secondary roads—implies differences in the predictability of the movement pattern of the visual stimulation, in the eye musculature activity and in the type of feedback used in visual information processing (mostly extra-retinal on motorways and retinal and extra-retinal on conventional roads). All this ultimately leads to alertness differences between both road types. Our research is intended to provide empirical evidence from the hypothesis, based on the data recorded during the actual driving experience of a group of subjects on a motorway and a conventional road. We studied whether or not significant alertness differences were found-measured by EEG data relative to time periods of on-target eye-tracking performance—between motorway and conventional road driving. Our results partially support the hypothesis, as drowsiness proved to be higher on motorways than on conventional roads during the final driving period but not during the starting stage, when the opposite trend was noticed. This result could be explained by the fact that during the first driving periods the effects of the stimulus movement predictability had not yet become apparent, since they tend to show after a long drive.     

Design as a socially significant activity: An introduction

In understanding design-society relationships its crucial that we grasp what we are talking about when we use the word ‘design’. Too often the term is used not to denote the activity of designing but either the results of that activity (designed products) or the problems which originate that activity or both. But considered in this way the design process disappears from conceptual view. This lack of reference to design activity as such leads to ambiguities in formulations such as design-and-society as to what is meant in a particular formulation of the term. At the same time the related use of analogical models to explain or account for design prevents real understanding of what design is. The significance of design can only be understood, it is argued, by focusing on design activity. But once we do focus on design activity we find it has a wider social significance than has previously been thought.     

The nature of intuitive use of products: an experimental approach

The term ‘intuitive use’ has been widely used with respect to various products and systems but has not yet been adequately defined. Through an extensive literature review, it was concluded that intuition is a cognitive process that utilises knowledge gained through prior experience. Intuitive use of products involves utilising knowledge gained through other products or experience(s). Therefore, products that people use intuitively should be those with features they have encountered before. A set of experiments with a digital camera was conducted to test the thesis. The results of these experiments support the thesis. It was found that prior knowledge of features or functions of the camera allowed participants to use those features intuitively, whereas unfamiliar features or functions had to be figured out, which was more time consuming and effortful.     

Annealing Textures for Drawability: Influence of the Degree of Cold Rolling Reduction for Low-Carbon and Extra Low-Carbon Ferritic Steels

This work considers the optimization of deep drawing properties by studying the influence of hot rolling conditions, cold reduction rate, and final annealing on the evolution of steel sheet textures. Two steels have been selected: a low-C steel used for enameling applications, and an extra-low-C steel of the interstitial-free type. Results show that the intensity of {111} component—and, consequently, drawability—is considerably higher in the textures of cold-rolled and annealed sheets than in hot-rolled sheets. It is suggested that drawability of sheets annealed after cold rolling improves if greater than conventional reduction rates are used during rolling. Finally, it is shown that, contrary to what has sometimes been claimed, improvements of the “r” coefficient are not accompanied by a “pancake” morphology of the ferrite grains.     

Expert systems and the emergence of teledesign

This paper considers the extent to which the amateur use of expert systems for home design challenges traditional views of the design process. The issues are examined in the context of competing definitions of design. The emergence of a design process characterised as ‘teledesign’ is then considered, wherein retailers provide a CAD/CAM service to consumers, allowing the latter to use expert systems to modify template designs and get products fabricated to their own specifications. Such a system may be seen to empower consumers as designers, rather than just selectors of products, and would differ considerably from established paradigms of design, manufacture and consumption, such as that given by Baudrillard.     

A knowledge-based advisory system for statistical quality control

Implementation of an effective quality management system requires the ready availability of expert statistical quality control (SQC) practitioners. However, this expertise may be unavailable to many small- and medium-size manufacturing organizations. Knowledge-based systems (KBS) can be used to make SQC expertise easily available to these organizations. This paper describes a KBS that has been developed for providing assistance in: (1) the selection and design of appropriate quality control charts; (2) the process monitoring analyses; and (3) providing corrective advice based on the monitoring analyses results. The KBS runs on a microcomputer and has been developed using a commercially available development shell.     

Physical neuroergonomics: The human brain in control of physical work activities

One of the important functions of the human brain is voluntary control of movements and motor activities combined with perceptual, cognitive and affective processes. This paper introduces the emerging field of study, named hereby as physical neuroergonomics, that focuses on the knowledge of human brain activities in relation to the control and design of physical tasks. Motor, cognitive and emotional aspects and their inter-relationships in connection to physical ergonomics are considered. A review of recent advances in functional electroencephalography (EEG), with special accent on the time domain analyses of the human brain activity in selected motor tasks, is also presented. The reported studies of isometric elbow-flexion contractions confirmed that the cerebral-cortex system controls the extent of muscle activation and is responsible for smoothing out high-speed motor control processes. Furthermore, the emotional attitudes of the subject to the activity can compel performance beyond acceptable loading through psychological pressure or necessity. The discussed results are important to one's understanding of human limitations and capabilities on a variety of physical tasks, and may ultimately help explain the mechanisms of musculoskeletal injuries at work. These results also underscore the need for a novel approach to workplace studies, i.e. neuroergonomics design.     

In search of design excellence

This paper is based on part of the results of an extensive survey of the role of new product design in international competitiveness. It reviews the literature on design management and highlights some weaknesses in the way in which design is managed in many UK industries, which apparently places the UK at a competitive disadvantage in manufacturing exports when compared with their major foreign competitors. The paper examines ways in which the management of design many be enhanced to improve design quality and achieve greater competitiveness. It was found that to maximize achievements in design, innovators must not only create awareness, but also create a climate in which everyone is committed to design quality throughout the organization. A wide range of functions involved in design management — managerial, marketing, technical, financial, etc. — must also be ‘happily married’ to achieve product excellence and hence market success.     

Keep it Simple: A Companion for Simple Wikipedia?

In this paper, we inquire about some of the ways in which the community around Simple Wikipedia—an offspring of Wikipedia, the notorious free online encyclopedia—manages the online collaborative production of reliable knowledge. We focus on how it keeps its collection of articles “simple” and easy to read. We find that the labeling of pages as “unsimple” by core members of the community plays a significant but seemingly insufficient role. We suggest that the nature of this mode of decentralized knowledge production and the structure of Wiki-technology might call for the implementation of an editorial companion to the community.     

A knowledge-based system for materials selection in mechanical engineering design

This paper studies various work on the development of computerized material selection system. The importance of knowledge-based system (KBS) in the context of concurrent engineering is explained. The study of KBS in material selection in an engineering design process is described. The development in materials databases, which sometimes serve as material selection packages, is also discussed. The use of KBS in material selection and the application in the domain of polymeric-based composite are chosen as typical examples.