Optimum design of bicycle frame considering kansei and structural performances

This paper presents an optimum design method considering structural performances and Kansei, which has been becoming an important issue for product designs with maturation of consumer demands. The response surface methodology combined with the design of experiment technique is applied to a bicycle frame design problem. The strength and the rigidity calculated by FEM are used as the evaluation functions for the structural performances. Three dimensional rendering models are constructed with computer graphics software, and used for the Kansei evaluation. The Kansei performances such as individual and elegant are evaluated by the Semantic Differentials technique and quantified. A road-bicycle frame is focused on as an application example of this method. Sizes of the cross section at both ends, position and angle of rotation at the midpoint of each frame are defined as the design variables to be optimized. By using the response surfaces between the design variables and the performances, the form of road-bicycle frame is optimized under various objectives and constraints. The form with the optimized design variables is visualized with the CG software. © 2013 The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.