BiT-FMIE

Lecture
on
Conceptual Design
By
Fentahun A.
 Contents
 Introduction
 Critical Thinking
 Creativity and Problem Solving
 Barriers to Creative Thinking
 Creative Thinking Methods
 Systematic Methods for Designing
 Performing Functional Decomposition
 Combining Working Principles
 Developing Concepts
 Examples
 Introduction

Conceptual design is the method of developing different

ideas about the working mechanism and structure of the
product.
 Conceptual design is the part of the design process where:
by identifying the essential problems through abstraction,
establishing function structures,
searching for appropriate working principles and
combining these in to a working structure
 the basic solution path is laid down through the elaboration
of a solution principle.
 Conceptual design specifies the principle solution.
 Give decision for the stated solutions.
 Steps of Conceptual Design

• According to the procedural plan outlined in chapter three, the

conceptual design phase follows the clarification of the task.
  CREATIVITY AND PROBLEM SOLVING

 Creative thinkers are distinguished by their ability to synthesize

new combinations of ideas and concepts into meaningful and
useful forms.
 Creative ideas result from putting existing ideas together in
novel ways.
 The creative process can be viewed as moving from an
amorphous idea to a well-structured idea, from the chaotic to
the organized, from the implicit to the explicit.
Aids to Creative Thinking
 Develop a creative attitude: To be creative it is essential to
develop confidence that you can provide a creative solution to a
problem. Although you may not visualize the complete path
through to the final solution at the time you first tackle a
problem, you must have self-confidence; you must believe that
a solution will develop before you are finished.
 Unlock your imagination: You must rekindle the vivid
imagination you had as a child. One way to do so is to begin to
question again. Ask “why” and “what if,” even at the risk of
displaying a bit of naïveté.
 Be persistent: We already have dispelled the myth that
creativity occurs with a lightning strike. On the contrary, it
often requires hard work. Most problems will not succumb to
the first attack. They must be pursued with persistence. Edison
comment, “Invention is 95 percent perspiration and 5 percent
inspiration.”
 Con’t…
 Develop an open mind: Having an open mind means being
receptive to ideas from any and all sources. The solutions to
problems are not the property of a particular discipline, nor is
there any rule that solutions can come only from persons with
college degrees.
 Suspend your judgment: We have seen that creative ideas develop
slowly, but nothing inhibits the creative process more than critical
judgment of an emerging idea.
 Set problem boundaries: Establishing the boundaries of the
problem is an essential part of problem definition. Experience
shows that setting problem boundaries appropriately, not too tight
or not too open, is critical to achieving a creative solution.
 Con’t…
 Some psychologists describe the creative thinking process and
problem solving in terms of a simple four-stage model.
 Preparation: The elements of the problem are examined
and their interrelations are studied.
 Incubation: You “sleep on the problem.” Sleep disengages
your conscious mind, allowing the unconscious mind to
work on a problem freely.
 Inspiration: A solution or a path toward the solution
emerges.
 Verification: The inspired solution is checked against the
desired result.
 Barriers to Creative Thinking
 A mental block is a mental wall that prevents the problem
solver from correctly perceiving a problem or conceiving its
solution.
 A mental block is an event that inhibits the successful use of
normal cognitive processes to come to a solution.
 Con’t…
There are many different types of mental blocks.
 Perceptual Blocks
Perceptual blocks have to do with not properly defining the
problem and not recognizing the information needed to solve it.
 Stereotyping: Thinking conventionally or in a formulaic way
about an event, person, or way of doing something. Not
thinking “out of the box.”
 Information overload: unable to sort out the critical aspects
of the problem.
 Con’t…
 Limiting the problem unnecessarily: Broad statements of the
problem help keep the mind open to a wider range of ideas.
 Fixation: People’s thinking can be influenced so greatly by
their previous experience or some other bias that they are not
able to sufficiently recognize alternative ideas.
 Priming or provision of cues: If the thinking process is started
by giving examples or solution cues, it is possible for thinking
to stay within the realm of solutions suggested by those initial
starting points. This is known as the conformity effect.
 Con’t…
 Emotional Blocks
These are obstacles that are concerned with the psychological
safety of the individual. They reduce the freedom with which you
can explore and manipulate ideas.
 Fear of risk taking: This is the fear of proposing an idea that is
ultimately found to be faulty.
 Unease with chaos (disorder): People in general, and many
engineers in particular, are uncomfortable with highly
unstructured situations.
 Con’t…
 Unable or unwilling to incubate new ideas: In our busy
lives, we often don’t take the time to let ideas lie dormant
so they can incubate properly. It is important to allow
enough time for ideas to incubate before evaluation of the
ideas takes place.
 Motivation: People differ considerably in their motivation
to seek creative solutions to challenging problems. Highly
creative individuals do this more for personal satisfaction
than personal reward.
 Con’t…
 Cultural Blocks
 People acquire a set of thought patterns from living in a
culture. Most of us have experienced an educational system
that has valued knowledge and suppressed our childhood
proclivity to ask “why” and “how.”
 Certain industries are tradition bound and are reluctant to
change, even in the face of decreasing profitability.
 Intellectual Blocks
Intellectual blocks arise from a poor choice of the problem-
solving strategy or having inadequate background and
knowledge.
 Poor choice of problem-solving language or problem
representation: It is important to make a conscious decision
concerning the “language” for your creative problem solving.
 Con’t…

 Insufficient knowledge base : Generally, ideas are generated

from a person’s education and experience.
 Incorrect information: It is obvious that using incorrect
information can lead to poor results.
 Memory block: Memory holds strategies and tactics for
finding solutions as well as solutions themselves.
 Con’t…
 Environmental Blocks
These are blocks that are imposed by the immediate physical or
social environment.
 Physical environment: This is a very personal factor in its
effects on creativity. Some people can work creatively with all
kinds of distractions; others require strict quiet and isolation.
 Criticism: Nonsupportive remarks about your ideas can be
personally hurtful and harmful to your creativity.
 CREATIVE THINKING METHODS
These methods are aimed at improving the following
characteristics of the problem solver:
 Sensitivity: The ability to recognize that a problem exists
 Fluency: The ability to produce a large number of
alternative solutions to a problem
 Flexibility: The ability to develop a wide range of
approaches to a problem
 Originality: The ability to produce original solutions to a
problem
  Brainstorming
 Brainstorming is a group technique for generating ideas in a
nonthreatening atmosphere. It is a group activity in which the
collective creativity of the group is tapped and enhanced.
 The objective of brainstorming is to generate the greatest
number of alternative ideas from the uninhibited responses of
the group.
 Brainstorming is most effective when it is applied to specific
rather than general problems.
 Con’t…
There are four fundamental brainstorming principles.
 Criticism is not allowed .
 Ideas brought forth should be picked up by the other members
of the team.
 Participants should divulge all ideas entering their minds
without any constraint.
 A key objective is to provide as many ideas as possible within
a relatively short time.
SCAMPER checklist is used as a stimulant when the flow of ideas
begins to fall off during the brainstorming activity.
  Idea Generating Techniques Beyond Brainstorming
 These methods consist of prompting new thinking or blocked
thinking by providing questions that lead team members to
considered new perspectives on a problem or creative task.
 These same questions can be used to help you approach the
problem from different angles.
 Who? Who uses it, wants it, will benefit by it?
 What? What happens if X occurs? What resulted in success?
What resulted in failure?
 Con’t…
 When? Can it be speeded up or slowed down? Is sooner
better than later?
 Where? Where will X occur? Where else is possible?
 Why? Why is this done? Why is that particular rule, action,
solution, problem, failure involved?
 How? How could it be done, should it be done, prevented,
improved, changed, made?
 The Five Whys technique is used to get to the root of a
problem. It is based on the premise that it is not enough to just
ask why one time.
 Synectics: An Inventive Method Based on Analogy
 The synectics is a comprehensive creative procedure,
containing techniques for problem analysis, idea generation
and the selection stage.
 Synectics (from the Greek word synektiktein, meaning joining
together of different things into unified connection) is a
methodology for creativity based on reasoning by analogy that
was first described by Gordon.
 Synectics concentrates on the idea generation steps with the
use of analogies.
 Con’t…
Synectics recognizes four types of analogy:
 Direct Analogy: Starting from some aspect in the problem, one
looks for comparable or analogous situations; it may take the
form of a similarity in physical behavior, similarity in
geometrical configuration, or in function.
 Con’t…

• In describing the motion of electrons about the nucleus of an

atom it is common to use the analogy of the moon’s rotation
about Earth or Earth’s rotation about sun.
 Con’t…
 Fantasy analogy: The designer disregards all problem
limitations and laws of nature, physics, or reason. Instead, the
designer imagines or wishes for the perfect solution to a
problem.
 Personal analogy: The designer imagines that he or she is the
device being designed, associating his or her body with the
device or the process under consideration.
 Symbolic analogy: This is perhaps the least intuitive of the
approaches. Using symbolic analogy the designer replaces the
specifics of the problem with symbols and then uses
manipulation of the symbols to discover solutions to the original
problem.
  Systematic Methods for Designing
Functional Decomposition and Synthesis:
 Functional analysis is a logical approach for describing the
transformation between the initial and final states of a system or
device.
 Functional decomposition is a top-down strategy where a general
description of a device is refined into more specific arrangements
of functions and sub functions.
 Functional decomposition can be done with a standardized
representation system that models a device very generally. More
importantly, because it does not initially impose a design, it
allows more leeway for creativity and generates a wide variety of
alternative solutions.
 This feature of the functional decomposition method is called
solution-neutrality .
Physical Decomposition
 Physical decomposition means separating the product or
subassembly directly into its subsidiary subassemblies and
components and accurately describing how these parts
work together to create the behavior of the product.

 The result is a schematic diagram that holds some of the

connectivity information found by doing reverse
engineering.
 Con’t…

• Physical decomposition of a bicycle with two levels of

decomposition detail on the wheel subassembly.
 Con’t…
 Physical decomposition is a top-down approach to
understanding the physical nature of the product. The
decomposition diagram is not solution-neutral because it is
based on the physical parts of an existing design.

 Functional decomposition results in a solution-neutral

representation of a product called a function structure.
Functional Representation
 Systematic design is a highly structured design method
developed in Germany starting in the 1920s. The method was
formalized by two engineers named Gerhard Pahl and
Wolfgang Beitz.
 The stated goal of Pahl and Beitz was to “set out a
comprehensive design methodology for all phases of the
product planning, design, and development process for
technical systems.”
 Con’t…
 Systematic design represents all technical systems as
transducers interacting with the world around them. The
system interacts with its users and use environment by
exchanging flows of energy, material, and signal with them.

 The technical system is modeled as a transducer because it is

built to respond in a known way to flows from the use
environment.
Con’t…
 Con’t…

 The standardized flow types and function block names are

organized as general classes divided by more specific basic
types. This allows designers to represent components and
systems at different levels of abstraction.
 Using the most general level of function representation,
function class names, allows the reader to re-represent the
design problem in the broadest possible terms. This
abstraction encourages diverse thinking required in
conceptual design.
Performing Functional Decomposition
 A function structure is a block diagram depicting flows of
energy, material, and signal as labeled arrows taking paths
between function blocks.

 The function structure represents mechanical devices by the

arrangement of function blocks and flow arrows. Flow lines
drawn with arrows to indicate direction and labels to define
the flow connect the function blocks.
 Con’t…

 The function structure articulates an understanding of what the

product is expected to do at the beginning of the design
process.

 The function structure is very different from the physical

decomposition of a product because a function is the combined
behavior of mechanical components and their physical
arrangement.
 The most general function structure is a single function block
description of a device. This type of function structure (a single
function block) is called a black box representation of a device.
 It must list the overall function of the device and supply all
appropriate input and output flows.
Function structure of a potato harvesting machine
 Con’t…

Diagram with generally valid functions

Developing Concepts
 Rough sketches or rough scale-drawings of possible layouts,
forms, space requirements, compatibility, etc.
 Rough calculations based on simplified assumptions
 Preliminary experiments or model tests used to determine the
main properties or to obtain approximate quantitative statements
about the performance and scope for optimization
 Construction of models in order to aid analysis and visualization
(for example, kinematic models).
 Analogue modelling and systems simulation, often with the help
of computers.
 Further searches of patents and the literature with narrower
objectives
 Market research of proposed technologies, materials, bought-out
parts, etc.
Evaluating Principle Solution Variants
 Identifying Evaluation Criteria
 Based on requirements list and Further information was
subsequently gathered during firming up into principle
solutions.
 Hence it is necessary to consider technical, economic and
safety criteria at the same time.
Checklist with main headings for design
evaluation during the conceptual phase
 Weighting the Evaluation Criteria
 The evaluation criteria adopted may differ markedly in
importance. It is much more advantageous in the selection of
evaluation criteria to strive for an approximate balance,
ignoring low-weighted characteristics for the time being.
 Evaluation will be concentrated on the main characteristics
and hence provide a clear picture at a glance.
 Compiling Parameters
 Identified evaluation criteria in the sequence of the checklist
headings and to assign the parameters of the variants to them.
 Assessing Values
 Though the attribution of points raises problems, it is not
advisable to evaluate too timidly during the conceptual phase.
 Determining Overall Value
 The determination of the overall value is a matter of simple
addition, once the points have been assigned to the evaluation
criteria and the variants.
 Comparing Concept Variants
 Intermediate variants should only be released for embodiment
design after the elimination of weak spots or an improved
combination.
Developing Working Structures
 A working principle must reflect the physical effect needed for
the fulfilment of a given function and also its geometric and
material characteristics.
 Designers therefore usually search for working principles that
include the physical process along with the necessary
geometric and material characteristics, and combine these into
a working structure.
 A solution field (solution variant) can be constructed by
varying the physical effects and the form design features.
 These solution elements can be physical effects or even
working principles with geometric and material details.
Classification scheme with possible solutions for the
subfunctions identified in the function structure
Selecting Working Structures
Combining Working Principles
 To fulfil the overall function, it is then necessary to generate
overall solutions by combining the working principles into a
working structure, that is, system synthesis.
Combination of principles used to design a
potato harvesting machine in accordance
with the overall function structure
• Principle solution of a potato harvesting machine, using
a combination of principles
 Example: 1

Combined Row Teff and Fertilizer Distributer

 Needs and Requirements of the Customer
 the customers of the product are Ethiopian farmers
‘Site Amhara region, W/Gojjam ,Yilmana Denssa , Adet’
brainstorming: They are in the needs of:
 Less cost (cheap) machine,
 Easy to operate,
 Light weight machine,
 High resistance to corrosion,
 Easy to maintain without skilled man,
 Easy to transport,
 Cover high number of lines at one pass,
 More accurate relative to the current machines,
 Has opening and closing system as the operator needs,
 Reduce the number of labor required,
 Brainstorming
 Brainstorming ideas on row teff planter are listed as
follows:
1. Plastic wheel planter with hand driven metering system.
2. Two person driven planter at the side with two wheels.
3. Man carried planter
4. One wheel planter operated by person (push type )
5. planter with wheels driven on the rail
6. Pneumatic operated planter
7. One wheel man driven at the front (pull)
8. Four wheel planter hopper at the rear wheel
9. Planter with circular rod wheel
 Con’t…
Discussion
 discuss on the advantages and disadvantages of each
ideas:
1. Plastic wheel planter with hand driven metering system
Advantages
Light weight
It does not sink
It is free from corrosion
Disadvantages
Difficult to operate by one person
Less strength
Difficult to manufacture
  Solution Variants
Here, what the shape of the machine should look like,
operation mechanism and its types
Selection of the type of row teff planter/ operation
mechanism
Con’t…
 

Manually Operated Row Teff Planter

It is a planter which is operated manually by one operator.

 Ten row teff planter
 Ten row teff planter is the planter used to sow teff in a row which covers
ten lines at one pass and it also covers 1.8 m at one pass and the machine is
operate manually.

 The machine has the following main parts:

1. Hopper
2. Metering device
3. Handle
4. Dropper pipes
5. Shaft
6. Separating plate
7. Hopper connector
8. Stand
9. Hinge
10. Rack and pinion
Solution Variants
Selection Of Variants
Con’t…
Con’t…
Con’t….
Combined Working Structure

Key:
1. Stand
2. Rack
3. Dropper pipe
4. Handle
5. Metric device
6. pinion
7. Hoper
8. Pinion guider
 Example 2

Design and Manufacturing of Two Seat Aircraft

 Conceptual Design
In conceptual design the following points were rised.
1. Fuselage lofting
2. Wing configuration
2.1 Wing position
2.2 Wing tip shape
3. Tail arrangement
4. Engine location
5. Propeller position
6. Landing gear arrangement
Final product
1. Fuselage Lofting
Variants For Fuselage
Selection of fuselage variants
2. Wing configuration
Selection of variants
2.1 wing tip shape
Selection of variants
3. Tail Arrangement
Selection of variants
 4. Engine Location
Types of engine location
Fuselage mounting
Wing mounting
5. propeller position
Selection of variants
6. Landing Gear Arrangement
Selection of variants
Working Principle
Example 3

Design and Manufacturing of Corn Reaper Machine

Functional Block Diagram
Solution variant
Selection of Variants
Solution Variants for Each Parts of the Machine
Selection of Variants
Final Product
 Discussion
Within your group, discuss about:

1. Your understanding about conceptual design?

2. Generate about 5 alternative solutions for your project?

Thanks