Knowledge Push Method to Support Iterative Product Design

Product design is a reciprocal iterative process, the core is the acquisition and application of design knowledge. Knowledge push technology can help designers improve the efficiency of knowledge utilization and assist them to complete product design iterations and generate design solutions. Existing knowledge push methods can assist designers in design decision-making in terms of product design process construction and design information acquisition, but there is less research on how to extend knowledge to adapt to the dynamic needs in the iterative design process. To address this issue, a knowledge-pushing method to support iterative product design is proposed to assist designers in flexibly applying knowledge to make iterative product design decisions through knowledge extension. Firstly, a knowledge push model to support product iterative design is proposed for the dynamic knowledge requirements of product iterative design; secondly, a requirement decomposition and processing method based on the function-behavior-structure mapping are studied, and a visual representation and structured storage strategy of design knowledge based on knowledge mapping are established; then, an evaluation method of knowledge model for iterative design based on knowledge similarity is established, knowledge pushing and expansion is based on the evaluation results. On this basis, a prototype knowledge push system is developed to support the iterative design of products. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are verified by taking the design of the elevator driven system as an example. The result shows that the proposed method can push and extend the design knowledge and effectively assist designers to use the knowledge for design iteration. © 2022 Editorial Office of Chinese Journal of Mechanical Engineering. All rights reserved.