An Innovative Method for Lightweight Design Based on FBS and Conflict Resolution

Abstract With the rapid development of today’s economy, people’s requirements for products are more diverse, and lightweight requirements are typical of these. Lightweight products play an important role in today’s engineering practice, and many researchers are participating in lightweight research. Schemes generated by conceptual design are used to realize the function, but it is difficult to consider simultaneously the lightweight and the functions’ realization. Especially the structures of the products may conflict with the way of working when the lightweight is considered. Sometimes, choosing which structure to start lightweight design is an important issue for a product; so an innovative design model for lightweight products based on FBS and conflict resolution is offered by the authors which can also take into account the product function while reducing the weight from the structure. The model includes three parts: Firstly, multi requirement analysis and FBS is constructed for the initial scheme. Secondly, if the requirements are not met, the structure in the initial scheme is scored by AHP, and the appropriate structure is selected for preliminary lightweight. Thirdly, the lightweight structure is obtained through conflict resolution, and then the conflict between it and other structures in the initial scheme is solved, to generate a new general structure. This paper takes the vertical frame and brace of a gantry crane as an example to verify the effectiveness of the model.