| This research is concerned with the topic of vulnerability reduction in the different phases of the design process from the perspective of concept selection and design axioms. There are two design axioms that are of concern in this research: Independence Axiom and Information Axiom. The conceptual entities that violates the design axioms suffer from the presence of vulnerabilities. For example, a design entity that violates the Independence Axiom suffers from some degree of coupling a design vulnerability.;In this work, vulnerability reduction is viewed as a stand-alone practice that complements the traditional design phases. However, vulnerability reduction is most beneficial if conducted in the concept generation phase and prior to optimization. The approach entertained in this research has two streams of development: a theoretical stream and a practical stream. In theoretical stream, the effort is based on the mathematical derivation of the possible connections between different design tools to facilitate their integration in a vulnerability reduction effort. Tool integration boosts the efficiency of the design process by supplementing formulations for vulnerability optimization routines. On the other hand, the practical stream is devoted to the premier task of molding the findings of the theoretical stream in a comprehensive design process that spans conceptualizing and optimization phases. The research in the conceptualizing phase resulted in a systematic framework for concept generation and selection while the research in the optimization phase yielded optimization routines and mathematical derivations. Optimization routines are used to reduce coupling and complexity in design entities and to gear parameter design and tolerance design (optimization phases) to useful regions of the design space where vulnerabilities can be reduced. With respect to the mathematical derivations, the effort is centered on exploring the implication Axiomatic Design on parameter design and tolerance design of Robust Design approach. In the case of parameter design, we linked robustness measures to coupling and complexity measures while our effort in tolerance design phase is concentrated on setting individual tolerances of design parameters to reduce design vulnerabilities while minimizing total quality cost. |
