Resources

Design Standards - Project & Product Guidelines for Our Planet & Us

These guidelines are for everybody involved in creative endeavour; for small articles or large projects.

They are not rules but considerations that will help us make better decisions for our future.

PLANNING THE PROJECT

  • Will the product or project over its full life cycle leave our planet in better condition?
  • Will our environment, our plants, our animals, present and future humans benefit because of this project?
  • Does the project treat all peoples and animals with compassion?
  • Does the project warrant every form of risk involved?

During EACH of the intended phases of

  • Material acquisition
  • Construction
  • Operation
  • Dismantling
  • Component & material disposal

Is the lowest energy method used?
Can renewable energy sources be used?
Can existing materials or equipment be used?
Have all effects and by-products been considered - chemical - biological - temperature - environmental - radioactive - safety - social?

Have undesirable effects been minimized?

  • Have undesirable effects been minimized?
  • Are all precautions in place?
  • Is the community informed of all risks & implications?

DESIGN

In reaching a design solution for the project objectives, the following considerations will help reduce waste, energy, maintenance, unreliability & cost.

Each small improvement will make your project or product better for our planet.

Minimize

Because
Parts lower cost & less to go wrong
Manufacturing operations lower cost & less to go wrong
Assembly operations lower cost & less to go wrong
Skills needed fewer mistakes, less waste, lower cost
Tools needed lower cost, more easily serviceable
Special materials lower cost, more easily repairable
Quantity of material better use of resources, less weight
Size more cheaply transported & handled
Energy needed overall lower cost, environmentally better
Wastage lower cost, environmentally better
Energy needed overall lower cost, environmentally better
   

Maximize

Because
Functions per part one part doing two jobs will save parts
Features of manufacture eg casting may enable a form creation such as a handle, without extra parts
Parts per fixing fewer parts, lower cost, more reliable
Batch size set-up costs reduced
Symmetry larger batch sizes, easier assembly
Recycled material usage less waste, environmentally better
Energy recovery less waste, environmentally better
Part life less waste, environmentally better
Part recovery & re-use less waste, environmentally better

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Design Education 

Discussion Paper - Engineering Course Restructure

How Well is Mechanical-Engineering Design Taught in Australian Universities?

Alex Churches and Douglas Magin; Faculty of Engineering, The University of NSW

Engineering Education Australia offers an ever increasing range of education and training courses and services in Australia and overseas.

Design Tensions paper by Peter McGowan

Re-Engineering Australia Forum aims to create a advantage for Australia in a competitive engineering environment.

SEED Ltd (Sharing Experience in Engineering Design) is an organisation of teachers of design in tertiary education. Its aims are:

  • to encourage the sharing of experience in engineering design education
  • to arrange visits to design teaching departments rovide a forum for the discussion of concerns about design education
  • to pursue a better understanding of design
  • to improve the quality of design education

(Copyright: The text and drawings in these on-line guides may not be copied without explicit written permission from SEED Ltd.)

Comprehensive Guide to Australian Universities

NCED Design Education Forum

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Design Textbooks & Journals

Textbooks

Adams, J. L. (1974) Conceptual blockbusting, San Francisco:Freeman  Easy-to-absorb text dealing with creative thinking. The basic objective of the text is to free the human mind from cognitive boundaries (mind-sets). The popular terminology used for the style of thinking advocated throughout the text is thinking outside the square, or lateral thinking.  

Alger, J. R. M. and Hays, C. V. (1964) Creative synthesis in design, Englewood Cliffs N.J.: Prentice-Hall 
Series of introductory, descriptive, essays on the design process, by two experienced practicing engineers.  

Andreasen, M.M., Khler, S. and Lund, T. (1983) Design for assembly, Berlin:Springer 
Introductory text on design for ease of assembly, with well researched case examples. 

Archer, L. B. (1974) Design awareness and planned creativity, London: The Design Council 		  

Asimow, M. (1962) Introduction to design, Englewood Cliffs N.J.: Prentice-Hall 
Excellent, concise, introductory overview on the general procedural approach to design.  

British Standards Institution, (1989) BS7000: Guide to managing product design, London: BSI 		  

Creamer, R. H. (1984) Machine design, Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley 
Third edition (originally published in 1968) of a standard text on machine element design.  

Cross, N.(1994) Engineering design methods: Strategies for product design, Chichester: John Wiley 
Introductory level text about strategies for synthesis in product design.  

de Bono, E. (1971) The use of lateral thinking, Harmondsworth: Penguin 
Articulate presentation of the author's ideas on lateral thinking, as an aid to creative problem solving.  

Dieter, G. (1983) Engineering design: A materials and processing approach, New York: 
This text is addressed to designers with a specific interest in materials selection and process management. It also contains a brief introductory section on general procedural design methods. 

Deutschman, A. D., Michaels, W. J. and Wilson, C. E. (1975) Machine design, London: Macmillan 
A comprehensive, practical text on the analysis and selection of specific machine elements.  

French, M. J. (1985) Conceptual design for engineers, London/Berlin: The Design Council/Springer 
Challenging, thoughtfully written text advocating combinatorial and parametric evaluation of designs at the conceptual level. The examples offered are thoroughly grounded in engineering science.  

French, M. J. (1988) Invention and evolution: Design in nature and engineering, Cambridge: University Press 
While this text claims to be an introduction to design for function, with several examples drawn from nature, the authorís deep understanding of the underlying engineering principles makes this a scholarly presentation. Insightful parallels are drawn between design in nature and products designed by humans.  

French, M. J. (1992) Form, structure and mechanism, London: Macmillan 
Further case examples of embodiment design based on the authorís substantial design experience.  

Haugen, E. B. (1968) Probabilistic approaches to design, New York: Wiley 
A specialist text devoted to reliability analysis in the context of product design.  

Hindhede, U., Zimmerman, J. R., Hopkins, B. R., Erisman, R. J., Hull, W. C., Lang, J. D. (1983) Machine design fundamentals, New York: John Wiley 
A comprehensive practical text on machine element selection for function and structural integrity.  

Hubka, V., Andreasen, M. M. and Eder, E. (1988) Practical studies in systematic design, London: Butterworth 
Well presented case examples on the development of embodiment design.  

Johnson, R. C. (1980) Optimum design of machine elements, 2nd. edition, New York: John Wiley 
Systematic approach to setting up objective functions in the design of machine elements.  

Jones, J. C. (1980) Design methods, New York: John Wiley 
Seminal text on design methods, originally published in 1970. This text is the forerunner of many ideas eventually articulated in specialist design texts, including removal of mental blocks (see also Adams: Conceptual blockbusting).  

Juvinall, R. C. and Marshek, K. M. (1991) Fundamentals of machine component design, 2nd. edition, New York: John Wiley 
A comprehensive text dealing with the selection and analysis of machine components for structural integrity.  

Krick, E. V. (1969) An introduction to engineering and engineering design, New York: John Wiley 
Well written text for an introductory course on decision support tools in engineering design, with many excellent examples.  

Krick, E. V. (1976) An introduction to engineering and engineering: Methods, concepts and issues, New York: John Wiley 
Excellent introduction to the broad spectrum of problems that can face engineers. There are many engaging examples for design scholars.  

Lawson, B. (1990) How designers think: The design process demystified, London:Butterworth 		  

Levinson, I. J. (1978) Machine design, Reston, Virginia: Reston Publishing Co. 
Introductory text on machine element design. 

Matousek, R. (1963) Engineering design: a Systematic approach, London: Blackie & Son, (translated from German by A. H. Burton and D. C. Johnson) 
An Introductory text on the systematic design of embodiment for machine elements, based on function.  

Nevins, J. L. and Whitney, D. E. (eds., 1989) Concurrent design of products and processes, New York: McGraw-Hill 
A collection of articles on specialist topics with the focus on manufacturing and its relation to design.  

Niebel, B.W. and Draper, A.B.(1974) Product design and process engineering, New York: McGraw-Hill 
Although somewehat dated, this is a valuable text for design related matters in material selection and process engineering. 

Pahl, G. and Beitz, W. (1996) Engineering design: A systematic approach, 2nd. edition, Translated into English by Wallace, K. (ed.), Blessing, L. and Bauert, F., London: Springer 
Currently the most often quoted text in engineering design. The objective of the authors is to present a systematic approach to machine element embodiment design. This is a purely functional evaluation of the embodiment, and structural integrity is not considered in this context.  

Petroski, H. (1994) Design paradigms: Case histories of error and judgement in engineering, Cambridge: University Press 
An excellent anecdotal text about engineering judgement and its role in design. The majority of examples are drawn from civil engineering, due to the authorís special interest in that discipline.  

Petroski, H. (1996) Invention by design : How engineers get from thought to thing, Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press 
Well researched case examples on the evolution of inventions, ranging from paper clips to elevators.  

Sharpe, J. (ed., 1996) AI System support for conceptual design: Proceedings of the 1995 Lancaster International Workshop on Engineering Design, London: Springer 
A mixed collection of articles about the evolution of computer based autonomy in generating design concepts.  

Shigley, J. E. (1986) Mechanical engineering design, 5th edition (orginally published in 1963), New York: McGraw-Hill 
A seminal text on the design of generic machine elements for structural integrity. The clarity and scholarly presentation makes this a most popular text on machine element design. 

Spotts, M. F. (1978) Design of machine elements, 5th edition (orginally published in 1948), Englewood Cliffs N. J. : Prentice-Hall
A substantial text dealing with the design of a selection of generic machine elements for structural integrity.  

Wilde, D. J. (1978) Globally optimal design, New York: Wiley 
A general approach to setting up objective functions for guaranteed arrival at a global optimum. 
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Journals

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Design Resource References

Please note these documents were developed primarily for students in mecheng at UNSW, and are now made more generally available, with the consent of the author.

General Notes on Engineering Hardware

This section of the introductory courses in Mechanical Engineering Design in the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at The University of New South Wales deals essentially with engineering hardware. It was originally a hands-on laboratory course, supported by a series of formal lectures, in which students examined actual engineering components and answered a series of questions about certain aspects of those components. However, in the current course, it is presented simply as a very basic familiarisation course in engineering materials, manufacturing processes, and engineering hardware.

The character of the presented material changes as the course proceeds. In the early sections of these notes, the emphasis is on recognition of basic materials and manufacturing processes. In the later sections, the student's attention is being directed to design features and functions of components and assemblies. It is hoped that an understanding of the basic material will allow students to build a logical framework upon which they can assemble what can otherwise be a mass of disconnected facts into a structured whole.

These notes are set out in the following six parts:

Part 1 - Materials and Processes
Part 2 - Fasteners
Part 3 - Seals, Gaskets and Valves
Part 4 - Springs and Gears
Part 5 - Shafts and Bearings
Part 6 - Power Transmission Elements

 

A word of caution needs to be given. In a topic as broad as engineering hardware, the material presented must be a superficial view. It is no more than the tip of a very large iceberg. Notwithstanding this restriction, it is hoped that these notes can provide you with an invaluable knowledge of engineering hardware for use in the remainder of your four-year course and a useful start in your engineering career.

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Papers

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Useful Links

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Great Engineering Resources

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Australian Consulting Design Companies

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International Design Verification Companies

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Australian Design Verification Companies 

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Other Australian Engineering Companies of Interest

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