StructuralComponents

Abstract

StructuralComponents allows an engineer to quickly compose an early-stage structural concept and immediately analyse its performance. It follows the Conceptual Story method in an attempt to deal with imprecision and uncertainty. This thesis represents the third in a series of MSc theses on StructuralComponents, which as its general problem definition concerns providing more adequate early-stage design tools and dealing with imprecision and uncertainty. Both previous theses allowed the user to create a structural concept using the parametric and associative design paradigm. This thesis proposes a rewritten prototype implementation with similar functionality, and further incorporates new concepts. The thesis revolves around new specific problem statements: a limited adherence to formal research on design in engineering; a limited versatility of the super-element method for analysis; and the restriction of the previously plugin-based software architecture. To address theses, the three objectives for this thesis are: to bring the StructuralComponents concept in adherence with the characteristic design cycle and increase emphasis on the synthesis phase, i.e. the generation of design alternatives; to allow structural versatility beyond the previously used super-element method by developing a Finite Element Method Analysis engine; to remove external software and device dependencies by reimplementing the tool using a client– server software architecture.