Conceptual Green design, challenge and strategies

Two critical issues are outlined in dealing with green product conceptual design. The first is to implement a sketching tool to facilitate the conceptualization process. 2-D conventional sketching is effective in conceptual design, but it is not applicable in many design cases, especially in the 3D mechanical transmission design etc, appropriate conceptual design tools are necessary to be developed. The second is to implement disassembly analysis/planning tools in conceptual design processes. Traditionally, for a complex structure it is often too late to find the drawbacks in an assembly, where product disassembly analysis and sequence planning are carried out only after detailed design, which may be too late to cope with effectively. For these challenges, this paper introduced a conceptual configuration methodology, where case-based elements knowledge base, a handful of 3D drag & drop tools, three-dimensional navigation/analysis/assistant tools are introduced. The conceptual structure (CS) could be roughed out quickly and automatically with the help of interactive modification tools on the basis of the knowledge base. Object oriented product assembly model is developed to record product life-cycle information, on the basis of which product disassembly analysis and planning is carried out at early conceptual design phase. Some key analysis tools, like the mechanism kinematics analysis, mobility analysis, mechanism kinematics simulation etc are also incorporated. The functional design system is an effective way to search feasible excellent design ideas in the conceptual design stage