Engineering Design: Representation and Reasoning

Contrary to popular mythology, the designs of favorable products and successful systems do not appear suddenly, or magically. This second edition of Engineering Design demonstrates that symbolic representation and related problem-solving methods, offer significant opportunities to clarify and articulate concepts of design to lay a better framework for design research and design education. Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides a substantial body of material concerned with understanding and modeling cognitive processes. This book adopts the vocabulary and a paradigm of AI to enhance the presentation and explanation of design. It includes concepts from AI because of their explanatory power and their utility as possible ingredients of practical design activity. This second edition has been enriched by the inclusion of recent work on design reasoning, computational design, AI in design, and design cognition, with pointers to a wide cross section of the current literature.

Table of Contents:
1. Framing the issues; 2. Engineering design; 3. Characterizing the design process; 4. Taxonomies of engineering design; 5. Representing designed artifacts; 6. Representing design processes; 7. Where do we go from here?

About the Author :
Clive L. Dym is Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design and Director of the Center for Design Education at Harvey Mudd College. His primary interests are in engineering design and structural mechanics. He is the author of several books including Engineering Design: A Synthesis of Views (1994), Structural Modeling and Analysis (1997), Principles of Mathematical Modeling, Second Edition (2004) and Engineering Design: A Project Based Introduction, co-authored with Patrick Little (2008). He has published more than 90 refereed journal articles and is the founding editor of Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing. He has served on the editorial boards of several other journals, including the ASME's Journal of Mechanical Design. David C. Brown is Professor of Computer Science and has a collaborative appointment as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is also affiliated with the Manufacturing, Robotics and Learning Sciences programs. His research interests include computational models of engineering design and the applications of artificial intelligence to engineering and manufacturing. He has published Design Problem Solving: Knowledge Structures and Control Strategies, co-authored with B. Chandrasekaran (1990) and Intelligent Computer Aided Design, co-edited with M. B. Waldron and H. Yoshikawa (1992). From 2001 to 2011, he was the Editor in Chief of Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing and has been on the editorial boards of Concurrent Engineering: Research and Application; Research in Engineering Design and The International Journal of Design Computing.

Review :
'Dym and Brown present a useful resource to bring any design engineer interested in AI, or AI computer scientist interested in design, up to speed on the fundamentals of the field. This new edition also hints at emerging ideas from his active area of research. A very nice book, Engineering Design demonstrates how AI can impact the research and practice of engineering design.' Jonathan Cagan, George Tallman and Florence Barrett Ladd Professor of Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University 'The original edition provided the basis for a profound understanding of engineering design using concepts from artificial intelligence. In the second edition, Clive Dym and David Brown have, in a masterful manner, made a good book better. This edition brings together newly developed concepts in artificial intelligence and cognitive science to enhance our understanding of design. If you want to understand engineering design there is no better place to start than this book.' John S. Gero, Research Professor, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, formerly Director, Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, University of Sydney Praise for the first edition: '[Dym] has done an excellent job of describing the design process, both the psychological processes of the designer and the interaction between the human designer and the design tools that are now available and becoming available to assist (or collaborate) in the task. The book is a valuable contribution to the design literature and should be of great use as a solid introduction to the field.' Herbert A. Simon, Nobel Laureate, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University Praise for the first edition: 'Clive Dym combines ideas and methods from engineering design and artificial intelligence to demonstrate persuasively that design in its full creative sense can be approached computationally with important practical consequence. This places engineering design in a research context that has long been lacking. Many prospects for a useful, formal understanding of design and the design process follow where few were available before. Dym not only provides basic insights about design, but also points the way to future work that will surely impact the design process.' George Stiny, University of California, Los Angeles Praise for the first edition: 'A very scholarly work, and primarily of value to those interested in the philosophy of the study of design.' Choice Praise for the first edition: 'Surprisingly for a work in engineering which is typically male-oriented, Dym uses a gender-neutral writing style - a feature especially appreciated by this reviewer. Also appreciated was the helpful index of topics, names, and people mentioned in the book.' Maxine S. Cohen, IEEE Spectrum Praise for the first edition: 'The book does a great job in explaining how AI holds the key to representing design. Overall, the book is highly recommended for anyone who is interested in attaining a complete picture of the field.' Ankur Mehta, Yale Scientific