Knowledge-Based Design: A Function-Knowledge Reasoning Model for Product Conceptual Design

The foundation of product conceptual design depends heavily on the amount of knowledge and the usage of knowledge. How to retrieve relevant knowledge from knowledge resources accumulated by the enterprises to support product conceptual design process has become a key technology for product conceptual design. This chapter introduces a function-knowledge reasoning model for product conceptual design that constructs a mapping relationship between sub-functions after decomposition and granular clustered knowledge. It focuses on knowledge-based product conceptual design that helps identify critical issues, and generate new conceptual solutions through configuration. The quality-function deployment (QFD) and axiomatic-design (AD) are used in the function-knowledge model to realize the mapping from user requirements to product functions, and functional decomposition. A similarity algorithm is introduced to implement the mapping from sub-functions to knowledge. This function-knowledge reasoning model, which combines requirement transformation, functional decomposition, and knowledge configuration, helps to achieve intelligent matching and optimization in the product conceptual design stage.