Functional And Conceptual Design-notes 0

DESIGN THEORY DEVELOPMENT IN WORLD HISTORY Albert Einstein once said, “I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” Nowhere is this statement truer than in the field of product development. Product development requires an imagination for new technology, for novel solutions to both common and extra ordinary problems, and for unique processes to improve people’s lives.

There is a rich literature on mechanical product design. To understand where these methods and thoughts arose, it is instructive to reflect on the history of mechanical design theory, from its very inception at the start of recorded history to the current state of development. Major 50 design theory developments in world history. One main observation is that the design theory is not yet a mature field; new developments are constantly being undertaken. This insight is further understood from the plot below.

Design Development

Design Theory developments over time 100

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Two discernible trends can be observed. One is the rich development that occurred up through the time of the Roman Empire, with a plateau around the first millennium. Then another rapid profusion of design theory development began about the time of the 1700’s, which has not let up to this day. The first development period can be explained as the developments in design theory required of classic civilization, which ended with the fall of Roman Empire. Since craftsmen and architects were the designers of the age, they relied on the handed-down knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome for their understanding. Medieval civilization

was, from a design theory point of view, no more complex than ancient civilization. Technology had not advanced, so there was no demand for further developments in design theory. Grossly, simplifying, medieval civilization could develop all required devices with the handed-down theories of ancient civilization. It wasn’t until after the Middle Ages that this trend changed; technology advanced and the need arose for better design theories. New production systems, new labor saving technology, new understanding of the physical world, new mathematics-all of these advancements required more than a simple build-and-test design methodology. It can be seen from the history that the first theories on the design of mechanical devices were basically kinematic. It is only recently that more modern thoughts are being applied from other fields such as separating function and form when designing a complex mechanical system, applying complex algorithms to routine synthesis tasks and considering the value that a feature will bring to a device concept.