Chalmers Design Seminar
Series
Friday, September 21, 2007, 4:10 pm,
BA1200
Prof. William Cleghorn
The PACE Program at the University of
Toronto
Abstract:
PACE (Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering
Education) links GM, EDS, Hewlett Packard, Siemens UGS PLM Software,
Sun Microsystems, and their global operations, to support strategically
selected academic institutions worldwide to develop the automotive
product lifecycle management team of the future. The University of
Toronto is honored to be one of approximately 50 PACE institutions
worldwide. William Cleghorn will present the recent initiatives
in the PACE Program at the University of Toronto, as well as the future
potential of this Program as it relates to the teaching of design.
Speaker Biography:
Professor William Cleghorn is the Clarice Chalmers Chair of Engineering
Design at the University of Toronto. Cleghorn's areas of interest
include applied mechanics and computer aided engineering. He has
written a book entitled "Mechanics of Machines", which was published in
2005 by Oxford University Press. He is also the Integrator of the PACE
(i.e., Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering
Education) Program at the University of Toronto.
http://www.mie.utoronto.ca/faculty/cleghorn.html
Monday, October 15, 2007, 1:10 pm,
RS208
Prof. Robert Stone
Taming the Many-Tentacled Monster:
Functional Modeling and Its Implications on Automated Concept Generation
Abstract:
The representation of function in design has been studied since
at least the 1940s. Function has a prominent place in the techniques
and methodologies of value engineering, failure analysis and design
synthesis. However, its usage and languages employed have varied widely
- casting doubt on the usefulness of function representation as a
consistent design strategy. In this talk, we will explore the history
of function representation and how it has evolved over the years to
play a formal role in concept generation. Researchers in the Design
Engineering Lab (at UMR) have used a formalized functional language in
automated concept generation techniques that make the fuzzy front end
of the design process less tedious and time-consuming. This ongoing
research has produced a suite of computational design tools at the
center of which is a concept generator able to generate concept
variants from a functional description of a product. The concept
generator consists of two techniques that utilize archived product
information in a design repository to synthesize new concepts. With
this key finding and its prototype design tool, a design team is able
to rapidly generate multiple feasible design configurations. This
approach to automated concept generation, and others like it, will
advance our ability to create new products more quickly, with fewer
resources, with more re-use of existing knowledge and with certainty of
quality and performance.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Stone is currently an Associate Professor in the
Interdisciplinary Engineering Department and the Director of the
Student Design and Experiential Learning Center (SDELC) in the School
of Engineering. He was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the US Air
Force Academy during the 2006-07 academic year. Stone joined UMR in
January 1998 after completing his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from
The University of Texas at Austin. Stone has utilized his design
background to assist in creating the department’s design-focused
Interdisciplinary Engineering degree programs. Dr. Stone’s research
interests include design theories and methodologies, specifically
product architectures, functional representations and automated
conceptual design techniques, and he leads the Design Engineering Lab
at UMR (function.basiceng.umr.edu). He has authored chapters on product
architecture and reverse engineering techniques in product design
texts. He was appointed director of the interdisciplinary SDELC in
January 2004 where he oversees the design competition activities of
nine teams and guides the Center’s new engineering design and
experiential learning initiative. Prior to initiating his graduate
work, Dr. Stone worked in the Missions Operation Directorate of
NASA-Johnson Space Center as a Space Shuttle Flight Controller for the
Guidance, Navigation and Control Section.
http://web.umr.edu/~rstone/
Tuesday, November 27, 2007, 12:10 pm,
RS208 (Note new date/room!)
Dr. Marie-Josée Potvin, Canadian Space Agency
Designing for the Harsh Space
Environment in a Multidisciplinary and Research Context
Abstract:
The Canadian Space Agency started research work on the
structural aspects of membrane antennae in 2001. The knowledge
has matured enough to reach the stage of building a prototype.
Several factors impacted the design of the prototype. The harsh
space environment has to be accounted for, while its effects are not
always known or easily predictable. Designing a representative
prototype requires a multidisciplinary approach involving the expertise
of electrical engineers, material engineers, thermal engineers,
mechanical engineers, and structural engineers, each specialist
struggling to understand the issues of the others. The prototype
has many features at the research stage, which complicates the use of
the traditional discipline using Work Breakdown Structures and strict
schedules. Finally, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to
test prototypes designed for space, since conditions of lack of
gravity, lack of air, radiation, and extreme temperatures cannot be
reproduced simultaneously. All these factors make it challenging
to achieve a design that is conservative enough to be predictable, yet
innovative enough to achieve its goals.
Speaker Biography:
Dr. Marie-Josée Potvin is a Structural Dynamics Engineer at the
Canadian Space Agency. She completed her Bachelor's Degree in
Physics Engineering at École Polytechnique de Montréal,
Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering at Queen’s University, and a
Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at McGill University. After
having taught astronauts how to use the Canadarm for several months,
she now supervises the construction of satellite subsystems built by
Canadian companies. She also performs research on the Synthetic
Aperture Radar membrane antennae, coordinating the team that is
building a membrane antenna prototype.
If you have questions or would
like to meet with a speaker, please contact
Prof. L.H. Shu
2007 ASME Design Theory and Methodology Program Chair
Associate Professor, Wallace G. Chalmers Chair of Engineering Design
Mechanical & Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto
5 King's College Road, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G8
T 416 946 3028 F 416 978
7753
shu (at) mie (dot) utoronto (dot) ca