IMPROVING DESIGN RATIONALE CAPTURE DURING EMBODIMENT DESIGN

The design of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) as a part of the DECODE project is used as a case study to measure design rationale capture during the design process. It is observed that the capture of design rationale tends to decrease during the embodiment design phase. The inability to connect rationale to geometry is identified as a probable cause. A solution is proposed to increase the ease of design rationale capture during detail design by creating links between design rationale nodes and the corresponding parameters in the CAD design. Further implementation and testing of these concepts is discussed.