摘要：An adaptable product can satisfy different customer requirements by changing its configuration and parameter values during the operation stage. Design of adaptable products aims at reducing the environment impact through replacement of multiple different products with single adaptable ones. Due to the complex architec- ture, multiple functional requirements, and changes of product configurations and parameter values in operation, impact of uncertainties to the functional performance measures needs to be considered in design of adaptable products. In this paper, a robust design approach is introduced to identify the optimal design configuration and parameters of an adaptable product whose functional performance measures are the least sensitive to uncertain- ties. An adaptable product in this paper is modeled by both configurations and parameters. At the configuration level, methods to model different product configuration candi- dates in design and different product configuration states in operation to satisfy design requirements are introduced. At the parameter level, four types of product/operating parameters and relations among these parameters are discussed. A two-level optimization approach is developed to identify the optimal design configuration and its parameter values of the adaptable product. A case study is implemented to illustrate the effectiveness of the newly developed robust adaptable design method.

摘要：A multi-world mechanism is developed for modeling evolutionary design process from conceptual design to detailed design. In this mechanism, the evolutionary design database is represented by a sequence of worlds corresponding to the design descriptions at different design stages. In each world, only the differences with its ancestor world are recorded. When the design descriptions in one world are changed, these changes are then propagated to its descendant worlds automatically. Case study is conducted to show the effectiveness of this evolutionary design database model.