Case-based knowledge acquisition of product design

Modern product design is market-oriented, function-driven and novel knowledge-based. Focusing on its bottleneck, namely, the acquisition of experience knowledge, an object-oriented representation model of product design case is presented. The case instances encapsulate the design requirements (including the performance specification, environment constraints, cost limitation), design tasks, design processes, and design solutions, providing the comprehensive information for implementing a modern design system with capabilities of function-driven and agile response to market needs. Moreover, a knowledge acquisition model of design cases is developed on Sybase Power Designer 8.0, being able to inquire and retrieve the related design case. A prototype system of journal bearing design for turbo machinery is realized on SolidWorks 2000, using a four-lobe radial journal bearing as a design case to verify the feasibility and validity of the knowledge acquisition model. The work presented lays a usable foundation of case based design, gives support to functional retrieval in concurrent design environment, and promotes the automated conceptual design of modern products.