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TRACING THE EMERGENCE OF DESIGN PROBLEMS AND THEIR IMPACTS ON THE COMPLEXITY OF ENGINEERING SOLUTIONS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 July 2021

Torben Beernaert ,
Pascal Etman ,
Maarten De Bock ,
Ivo Classen  and
Marco De Baar
Torben Beernaert*
Affiliation:
Dutch Institute For Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER), The Netherlands;
Pascal Etman
Affiliation:
Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands;
Maarten De Bock
Affiliation:
ITER Organization, France
Ivo Classen
Affiliation:
Dutch Institute For Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER), The Netherlands;
Marco De Baar
Affiliation:
Dutch Institute For Fundamental Energy Research (DIFFER), The Netherlands;
*
Beernaert, Torben, DIFFER, PEPD, Netherlands, The, [email protected]

Abstract

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The design of ITER, a large-scale nuclear fusion reactor, is intertwined with profound research and development efforts. Tough problems call for novel solutions, but the low maturity of those solutions can lead to unexpected problems. If designers keep solving such emergent problems in iterative design cycles, the complexity of the resulting design is bound to increase. Instead, we want to show designers the sources of emergent design problems, so they may be dealt with more effectively. We propose to model the interplay between multiple problems and solutions in a problem network. Each problem and solution is then connected to a dynamically changing engineering model, a graph of physical components. By analysing the problem network and the engineering model, we can (1) derive which problem has emerged from which solution and (2) compute the contribution of each design effort to the complexity of the evolving engineering model. The method is demonstrated for a sequence of problems and solutions that characterized the early design stage of an optical subsystem of ITER.

Keywords

Large-scale engineering systemsComplexityProblem solvingFunctional modelling
Type
Article
Information
Proceedings of the Design Society , Volume 1: ICED21 , August 2021 , pp. 3229 - 3238
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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