Modular design method based on simultaneous consideration of physical and functional relationships in the conceptual design stage

There are many benefits of a modular product including reduced cost, rapid product development and reduced production time. The modular design of products has been increasingly popularized in modern engineering design activity. A new design method is proposed to design a modular product based on relationships among functional requirements of the product to overcome the difficulty of modular design. Axiomatic design, the function-based design method and design structure matrix are efficiently combined in the proposed method. Functional requirements and design parameters are defined based on the independence Axiom of axiomatic design and the zigzagging process of axiomatic design is employed for the decomposition of functional requirements and design parameters. The function-based design method is utilized for the decomposition of functional requirements and the design structure matrix is used to modularize the design parameters of the bottom level of the zigzagging process. Three design examples are demonstrated to validate the proposed method. The results are discussed and the usefulness of the proposed method is presented.