A DECOMPOSITION ALGORITHM FOR PARAMETRIC DESIGN
Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Dong, A.
Author: Jauregui-Becker, Juan Manuel; Schotborgh, Wouter Oliver
Series: ICED
Section: Design Methods and Tools Part 1
Page(s): 389-398
Abstract
This paper presents a recursive division algorithm to decompose an under constraint parametric design problem. The algorithm defines the separation of the problem at the hand of two complexity measures that are calculated for each parameter in the problem, namely, the effort E and the influence Inf. The result from applying this algorithm is a sequence indicating the order in which parameters can instantiated by, for example, a random value generator, or be calculated by using an equation. The characteristic of this algorithm is that it considers the structure of the equations in the problem to derive a solving strategy instead of considering its mathematic details. The advantage of doing so, from a design point of view, is that the algorithm is not limited to handling any specific types of equations (like for example pure algebraic or differential). In opposition, the algorithm is capable of handling different combinations of types of knowledge for determining a solving procedure.
Keywords: PARAMETRIC DESIGN; DECOMPOSITION; CONSTRAINT SOLVING; ALGORITHM