Transdisciplinary Engineering Design Process E-Book

Atila Ertas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1253

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A groundbreaking text book that presents a collaborative approach to design methods that tap into a range of disciplines In recent years, the number of complex problems to be solved by engineers has multiplied exponentially. Transdisciplinary Engineering Design Process outlines a collaborative approach to the engineering design process that includes input from planners, economists, politicians, physicists, biologists, domain experts, and others that represent a wide variety of disciplines. As the author explains, by including other disciplines to have a voice, the process goes beyond traditional interdisciplinary design to a more productive and creative transdisciplinary process. The transdisciplinary approach to engineering outlined leads to greater innovation through a collaboration of transdis-ciplinary knowledge, reaching beyond the borders of their own subject area to conduct "useful" research that benefits society. The author--a noted expert in the field--argues that by adopting transdisciplinary research to solving complex, large-scale engineering problems it produces more innovative and improved results. This important guide: * Takes a holistic approach to solving complex engineering design challenges * Includes a wealth of topics such as modeling and simulation, optimization, reliability, statistical decisions, ethics and project management * Contains a description of a complex transdisciplinary design process that is clear and logical * Offers an overview of the key trends in modern design engineering * Integrates transdisciplinary knowledge and tools to prepare students for the future of jobs Written for members of the academy as well as industry leaders,Transdisciplinary Engineering Design Process is an essential resource that offers a new perspective on the design process that invites in a wide variety of collaborative partners.

Leseprobe

Transdisciplinary Engineering Design Process

Atila Ertas

This edition first published 2018

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Inc

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ertas, Atila, 1944- author.

Title: Transdisciplinary engineering design process/by Atila Ertas.

Description: First edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2018. | Includes index. |

Identifiers: LCCN 2018002610 (print) | LCCN 2018012070 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119474777 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119474661 (epub) | ISBN 9781119474753 (cloth)

Subjects: LCSH: Engineering design. | Multidisciplinary design optimization.

Classification: LCC TA174 (ebook) | LCC TA174 .E7824 2018 (print) | DDC 620/.0042—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018002610

Cover image: © DDCoral/Shutterstock

Cover design: Wiley

This book is dedicated to Professors Jesse C. Jones and Timothy T. Maxwell for their endless support.

About the Author

Dr. Atila Ertas, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas Tech University, received his masters and PhD from Texas A&M University. He had 12 years of industrial experience prior to pursuing graduate studies. He has been the driving force behind the conception and the development of the transdisciplinary model for education and research. His pioneering efforts in transdisciplinary research and education have been recognized internationally by several awards from the Society for Design and Process Science (SDPS). He is the director of the transdisciplinary PhD program at Texas Tech University. He is the creater and the founding president of the non-profit organization The Academy for Transdisciplinary Learning and Advanced Studies (TheATLAS). He is a Senior Research Fellow of the ICC Institute at the University of Texas Austin, a Fellow of ASME, a Fellow of SDPS, and a Founding Fellow of the Luminary Research Institute in Taiwan. He is also an honorary member of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research (CIRET), France. He has earned a national and international reputation in engineering design. He is the author of a number of books and the editor/coeditor of more than 35 conference proceedings. His contributions to teaching and research have been recognized by numerous honors and awards. These include: President's Excellence in Teaching; Pi Tau Sigma Best Professor Award; Pi Tau Sigma Outstanding Teaching Award; Halliburton Award in recognition of outstanding achievement and professionalism in education and research; College of Engineering Outstanding Researcher Award; George T. and Gladys Hanger Abell Faculty Award for overall excellence in teaching and research; and President's Academic Achievement Award. He has published over 150 scientific papers that cover many engineering technical fields. He has been principal investigator or co-princial investigator on over 40 funded research projects. Under his supervision more than 190 MS and PhD graduate students have received degrees.

Preface

During the last decade, the number of complex problems facing engineers has exploded, and the technical knowledge and understanding in science and engineering required to attack these problems is rapidly evolving. The world is becoming increasingly interconnected as new opportunities and highly complex problems connect the world in ways we are only beginning to understand. When we don't solve these problems correctly and in a timely manner, they rapidly become crises. Problems, such as energy shortages, pollution, transportation, the environment, natural disasters, health, hunger and the global water crisis, threaten the very existence of the world as we know it today. Recently, fluctuating fuel prices and environmental concerns have sent car manufacturers in search of new, zero polluting, fuel efficient engines. None of these complex problems can be understood from the sole perspective of a traditional discipline. The last two decades of designing large–scale engineering systems have taught us that neither mono–disciplinary nor inter– or multi–disciplinary approaches provide an environment that promotes the collaboration and synthesis necessary to extend beyond existing disciplinary boundaries and produce truly creative and innovative solutions to large–scale, complex problems.

Large–scale, complex problems include not only the design of engineering systems with numerous components and subsystems which interact in multiple and intricate ways; they also involve the design, redesign and interaction of social, political, managerial, commercial, biological, medical, etc., systems. Further, these systems are likely to be dynamic and adaptive in nature. Solutions to such large–scale, complex problems require many activities which cross discipline boundaries.

One of the widely agreed to characteristics of transdisciplinary research is that it is performed with the intent of solving problems that are complex and multidimensional, particularly those related to sustainability in a human environment. Transdisciplinary research tends to focus on collaborations that transcend specific disciplines to define new knowledge.

The anticipated results of transdisciplinary research and education are: emphasis on teamwork, the bringing together of investigators from differing disciplines, and sharing of methodologies to generate fresh, invigorating ideas that expand the boundaries of problem solutions. The Transdisciplinary approach develops people with the desire to seek collaboration outside the bounds of their professional experience in order to explore different ideas. A truly transdisciplinary research and educational system is needed to address large–scale, complex problems and to educate the researchers and designers of the future.

Transdisciplinary education involves students from many areas of knowledge crossing disciplinary boundaries such as economics, modeling and simulation, optimization, reliability, statistical decisions, ethics, and project management, all of which are included in this book. Hence, students can understand issues from a broad point-of-view in order to synthesize potential solutions.

Over the past decade, awareness and understanding of the complexity of the environmental impact on human activity is growing. Issues of environmental change are of increasing concern for both developed and developing nations of the world. Design and processes are central to the concept of transdisciplinary education. Social, political and cultural aspects of problems and issues must be recognized if workable and economically feasible solutions are to be developed. Students will emerge from this transdisciplinary education program with a broad perspective of the world and its problems, including a wide range of tools that will equip them to address such problems and apply them to socially relevant issues. It is a program that will teach students to integrate and manage knowledge in technical, social and scientific areas that require the collaboration of engineers, planners, physicists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists, economists, and other specialists. Transdisciplinary methodologies and tools covered in this book can be applied in a wide variety of disciplines including economics, business, management, operations research, engineering, chemistry, genetics, and the social and behavioral sciences.

It is a pleasure to make grateful acknowledgment of the many valuable suggestions which have been contributed by Professor Jesse C. Jones. Two chapters, (Chapters 10 and 11), and a majority of the problems which are included were used without change from “The Engineering Design Process,” co-authored by Ertas and Jones. The first five chapters of this book are about the Transdisciplinary education, the remaining chapters are devoted to fundamental engineering knowledge adapted from the earlier book, with a significant amount of new material, example problems and case studies.

In conclusion, the author takes this opportunity to express his thanks to Ms. Lauren Newmyer, Mr. Utku Gulbulak, Dr. Adam Stroud, Dr. Turgut B. Baturalp and Dr. Bugra H. Ertas for their help in the preparation of this book.

Atila Ertas

1Systemic Thinking and Complex Problem Solving

We live in a highly complex, technological world – and it's not entirely obvious what's right and what is wrong in any given situation, unless you can parse the situation, deconstruct it. People just don't have the insight to be able to do that very effectively.

Christopher Langan

1.1 Introduction

The world's population continues to increase rapidly, which causes technology to develop at a geometric pace. Modern communication systems offer each of us overwhelming mountains of information, much of which is disorganized, not relevant, redundant, or inaccurate, and thus may well provide more confusion than clarity. We are faced with the necessity to wrestle with and solve many large-scale problems if we are to maintain sources of clean water, clean air, food, energy, adequate medical services, political stability, and a civilized social structure. Improving the condition of our world will prove even more difficult.

The area of study known as complexity is a very popular area of research. Complexity arises from the nature of large interconnected systems and is escalated by the background, personal characteristics, and perspectives of the individuals working on the design teams. It is important for designers to understand complexity and how it affects the understanding and projection of system behavior. It is also important to manage complexity so that it does not overwhelm the design effort and prevent the development of effective solutions. This chapter presents an overview of complexity, discusses how complexity can increase almost without bound(s), and suggests ways to control the impact of complexity on design process.

1.2 What Is Complexity?

During the last two decades of designing large-scale engineering systems it has been demonstrated that mono-, inter-, and multi-disciplinary approaches do not provide an environment that promotes the collaboration and synthesis necessary for extending disciplinary boundaries and producing innovative solutions to large-scale, complex problems. Such problems include the design of engineering systems with numerous components and subsystems which interact in multiple and intricate ways with social, political, managerial, commercial, biological, and medical systems. Furthermore, these systems are likely to be dynamic and adaptive in nature. Solutions to such complex problems require activities that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries; this is what we call transdisciplinary research and education.1

Complexity is difficult to understand due to the variety of competing proposed solutions and explanations for what constitutes complexity. Many researchers have proposed that complexity can described by size, entropy, information content, thermodynamic and information required to construct, computational capacity, statistical complexity, as well as others.2

Size was proposed as a level of complexity based on the presumption that larger things are inherently more complex. Information content refers to the length of computer program required to define a message or pattern.2 Many of the proposed definitions of complexity are based on identifying a quantifiable parameter for a system or problem; however, proposals to date have not provided an agreed-upon definition.2

A distinction must be drawn between complex and complicated systems because this association is a source of confusion. Complicated systems and complex systems may both have multiple individual interactive components; however, in complicated systems the behavior is well understood, while complex systems lack this clear understanding.3

An additional problem in defining complexity comes about due to the association of randomness as an indicator of complexity. This is likely due to the synonymous use of complexity with unpredictability, which is a characteristic of random systems.4

Although it is possible for complex systems to produce random outputs, this perception of randomness is often relative to individual observers and their knowledge base. The presumption of order or randomness cannot be definitely or certainly demonstrated; therefore, this is not an effective measure of complexity.4

To add further difficulty in providing a physical definition of complexity, Pierce argued, in one of the earlier texts addressing complexity, against it being a quantifiable parameter. He states: “Complexity is that sensation experienced in the human mind when, in observing or considering a system, frustration arises from lack of comprehension of what is being explored.”5 In this paradigm, complexity is dependent on the individual examiner of a system, not the system itself. Warfield presents seven necessary conditions for a situation to be complex:6

a human presence;

a generic purpose associated with the human presence;

an inquiry into the system by the human presence;

a human purpose related infrastructure to allow inquiry;

a system related environment;

a sensing mechanism to measure inquiry; and

cognition of the human presence.

In Warfield's analysis, the human observer is involved with every requirement of complexity. Complexity has been described as a degree of ignorance. Objects are more or less complex depending on our ignorance or lack of information about it, our ability to make distinctions and perceptions about it, and our ability to infer information from it. Encrypted messages highlight the concept of observer dependent complexity. Encrypted messages are commonly broadcast during wartime and are received by all parties within the broadcast range. Observers with the correct cipher, or knowledge related to the information, can interpret the message. Those without knowledge about the data may see the same information as without meaning and, in fact, random. This is underlined by the ideas presented by Gell-Mann, proposing that systems are hard to predict not because they are random, but because their regularities cannot easily be described, or are unknown.7

The perception driven definition of complexity is considered incomplete by many. Axelrod and Cohen argue that the source of complexity is fundamental to the system and cannot be eliminated.8 They go on to describe the structure of complex systems as being composed of artifacts and agents. The agents are the interacting entities with some level of functioning behavior. Agents have memory and capability, and can formulate strategies and interact with agents. The artifacts are unanimated objects, manipulated by agents and properties of the agents, such as location and capabilities. In this description, the agent's use of selective intervention is a source of complexity as it is very difficult to develop predictions for the system.8 This concept of complexity originating from a system was expanded with the identification of three sources of system complexity: environmental influence, initial conditions of the system, and the system structure itself.9 Stability was also studied by Simon by examining the chaotic nature of complex systems from minor changes in environment or initial condition.10