Synergy and transitivity in constraint dominance methods: Demonstration with linear motor design problem

Abstract

Reasoning about relationships among design constraints can facilitate objective and effective decision making at various stages of engineering design. Exploiting dominance among constraints is one particularly strong approach to simplifying design problems and to focusing designers' attention on critical design issues. Three distinct approaches to constraint dominance identification have been reported in the literature. We lay down the basic principles of these approaches with simple examples, and we apply these methods to a practical linear electric actuator design problem. With the help of the design problem we demonstrate strategies to synergistically employ the dominance identification methods. Specifically, we present an approach that utilizes the transitive nature of the dominance relation. The identification of dominance provides insight into the design of linear actuators, which leads to effective decisions at the conceptual stage of the design. We show that the dominance determination methods can be synergistically employed with other constraint reasoning methods such as interval propagation methods and monotonicity analysis to achieve an optimal solution for a particular design configuration of the linear actuator. The dominance determination methods and strategies for their employment are amenable for automation and can be part of a suite of tools available to assist the designer in detailed as well as conceptual design.