CONCURRENT DESIGN OF ENGINEERING SURFACES USING PATCHWORK ANALYSIS

This paper presents the theoretical basis for a new approach to concurrent engineering of surface topographies. An indispensable element of concurrent engineering of random topographies is a method for describing the topography that captures the essence that is responsible for behavior and is indicative of the manufacturing process and process variables. The approach presented here is based on understanding topographically dependent phenomena as collections of discrete interactions, at certain scales, which can be simulated in a patchwork fashion. It is then possible to estimate the strength of an interaction with a surface and to separate the design process into Euclidean and fractal regimes.