Affiliation:
1. National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA 22230
Abstract
In order to ensure that engineering design is conducted as a rational process producing the best possible results given the context of the activity, a mathematics of design is needed. It is possible to develop such a mathematics based on the recognition that engineering design is a decision-making intensive process and adapting theories from other fields, such as economics and decision theory. We present here eight axioms and derive from them two theorems, which underlie the mathematics of design. Then we present a third theorem that, in the context of the axioms presented, imposes severe conditions upon design methodologies. Together, the axioms and theorems provide a framework that enables the development of a normative theory of design. This theory is applied to a simple example. The results, while intuitively obvious, are substantially different from the results of a “conventional” engineering design analysis.
Subject
Computer Graphics and Computer-Aided Design,Computer Science Applications,Mechanical Engineering,Mechanics of Materials
Reference14 articles.
1. Arrow, K. J., 1963, Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd Ed., John Wiley & Sons, NY.
2. Bernoulli, D., 1738, “Specimen Theoriae Novae de Mensure Sortis,” Cementer Academia Scientiarum Imperalis Petropolitanae, Tomus V, pp. 175–192. Also, “Exposition of a New Theory of Risk Evaluation,” Econometrica, Jan. 1954, Vol. 22, pp. 23–36. Translated by Louise Sommers.
3. de Neufville, R., 1990, Applied Systems Analysis, McGraw-Hill, Inc., Singapore.
4. Hazelrigg, G. A., 1996a, Systems Engineering: An Approach to Information-Based Design, Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
5. Hazelrigg
G. A.
, 1996b, The Implications of Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem on Approaches to Optimal Engineering Design, ASME JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN, Vol. 118, June, pp. 161–164.
Cited by
51 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献