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Description
Design problem formulation is believed to influence creativity, yet it has received only modest attention in the research community. Past studies of problem formulation are scarce and often have small sample sizes. The main objective of this research is to understand how problem formulation affects creative outcome. Three research areas are investigated: development of a model which facilitates capturing the differences among designers' problem formulation; representation and implication of those differences; the relation between problem formulation and creativity.
This dissertation proposes the Problem Map (P-maps) ontological framework. P-maps represent designers' problem formulation in terms of six groups of entities (requirement, use scenario, function, artifact, behavior, and issue). Entities have hierarchies within each group and links among groups. Variables extracted from P-maps characterize problem formulation.
Three experiments were conducted. The first experiment was to study the similarities and differences between novice and expert designers. Results show that experts use more abstraction than novices do and novices are more likely to add entities in a specific order. Experts also discover more issues.
The second experiment was to see how problem formulation relates to creativity. Ideation metrics were used to characterize creative outcome. Results include but are not limited to a positive correlation between adding more issues in an unorganized way with quantity and variety, more use scenarios and functions with novelty, more behaviors and conflicts identified with quality, and depth-first exploration with all ideation metrics. Fewer hierarchies in use scenarios lower novelty and fewer links to requirements and issues lower quality of ideas.
The third experiment was to see if problem formulation can predict creative outcome. Models based on one problem were used to predict the creativity of another. Predicted scores were compared to assessments of independent judges. Quality and novelty are predicted more accurately than variety, and quantity. Backward elimination improves model fit, though reduces prediction accuracy.
P-maps provide a theoretical framework for formalizing, tracing, and quantifying conceptual design strategies. Other potential applications are developing a test of problem formulation skill, tracking students' learning of formulation skills in a course, and reproducing other researchers’ observations about designer thinking.
This dissertation proposes the Problem Map (P-maps) ontological framework. P-maps represent designers' problem formulation in terms of six groups of entities (requirement, use scenario, function, artifact, behavior, and issue). Entities have hierarchies within each group and links among groups. Variables extracted from P-maps characterize problem formulation.
Three experiments were conducted. The first experiment was to study the similarities and differences between novice and expert designers. Results show that experts use more abstraction than novices do and novices are more likely to add entities in a specific order. Experts also discover more issues.
The second experiment was to see how problem formulation relates to creativity. Ideation metrics were used to characterize creative outcome. Results include but are not limited to a positive correlation between adding more issues in an unorganized way with quantity and variety, more use scenarios and functions with novelty, more behaviors and conflicts identified with quality, and depth-first exploration with all ideation metrics. Fewer hierarchies in use scenarios lower novelty and fewer links to requirements and issues lower quality of ideas.
The third experiment was to see if problem formulation can predict creative outcome. Models based on one problem were used to predict the creativity of another. Predicted scores were compared to assessments of independent judges. Quality and novelty are predicted more accurately than variety, and quantity. Backward elimination improves model fit, though reduces prediction accuracy.
P-maps provide a theoretical framework for formalizing, tracing, and quantifying conceptual design strategies. Other potential applications are developing a test of problem formulation skill, tracking students' learning of formulation skills in a course, and reproducing other researchers’ observations about designer thinking.
ContributorsDinar, Mahmoud (Author) / Shah, Jami J. (Thesis advisor) / Langley, Pat (Committee member) / Davidson, Joseph K. (Committee member) / Lande, Micah (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In this dissertation, three complex material systems including a novel class of hyperuniform composite materials, cellularized collagen gel and low melting point alloy (LMPA) composite are investigated, using statistical pattern characterization, stochastic microstructure reconstruction and micromechanical analysis. In Chapter 1, an introduction of this report is provided, in which a brief review is made about these three material systems. In Chapter 2, detailed discussion of the statistical morphological descriptors and a stochastic optimization approach for microstructure reconstruction is presented. In Chapter 3, the lattice particle method for micromechanical analysis of complex heterogeneous materials is introduced. In Chapter 4, a new class of hyperuniform heterogeneous material with superior mechanical properties is investigated. In Chapter 5, a bio-material system, i.e., cellularized collagen gel is modeled using correlation functions and stochastic reconstruction to study the collective dynamic behavior of the embed tumor cells. In chapter 6, LMPA soft robotic system is generated by generalizing the correlation functions and the rigidity tunability of this smart composite is discussed. In Chapter 7, a future work plan is presented.
ContributorsXu, Yaopengxiao (Author) / Jiao, Yang (Thesis advisor) / Liu, Yongming (Committee member) / Wang, Qing Hua (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Pipeline infrastructure forms a vital aspect of the United States economy and standard of living. A majority of the current pipeline systems were installed in the early 1900’s and often lack a reliable database reporting the mechanical properties, and information about manufacturing and installation, thereby raising a concern for their safety and integrity. Testing for the aging pipe strength and toughness estimation without interrupting the transmission and operations thus becomes important. The state-of-the-art techniques tend to focus on the single modality deterministic estimation of pipe strength and do not account for inhomogeneity and uncertainties, many others appear to rely on destructive means. These gaps provide an impetus for novel methods to better characterize the pipe material properties. The focus of this study is the design of a Bayesian Network information fusion model for the prediction of accurate probabilistic pipe strength and consequently the maximum allowable operating pressure. A multimodal diagnosis is performed by assessing the mechanical property variation within the pipe in terms of material property measurements, such as microstructure, composition, hardness and other mechanical properties through experimental analysis, which are then integrated with the Bayesian network model that uses a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Prototype testing is carried out for model verification, validation and demonstration and data training of the model is employed to obtain a more accurate measure of the probabilistic pipe strength. With a view of providing a holistic measure of material performance in service, the fatigue properties of the pipe steel are investigated. The variation in the fatigue crack growth rate (da/dN) along the direction of the pipe wall thickness is studied in relation to the microstructure and the material constants for the crack growth have been reported. A combination of imaging and composition analysis is incorporated to study the fracture surface of the fatigue specimen. Finally, some well-known statistical inference models are employed for prediction of manufacturing process parameters for steel pipelines. The adaptability of the small datasets for the accuracy of the prediction outcomes is discussed and the models are compared for their performance.
ContributorsDahire, Sonam (Author) / Liu, Yongming (Thesis advisor) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Advanced material systems refer to materials that are comprised of multiple traditional constituents but complex microstructure morphologies, which lead to their superior properties over conventional materials. This dissertation is motivated by the grand challenge in accelerating the design of advanced material systems through systematic optimization with respect to material microstructures or processing settings. While optimization techniques have mature applications to a large range of engineering systems, their application to material design meets unique challenges due to the high dimensionality of microstructures and the high costs in computing process-structure-property (PSP) mappings. The key to addressing these challenges is the learning of material representations and predictive PSP mappings while managing a small data acquisition budget. This dissertation thus focuses on developing learning mechanisms that leverage context-specific meta-data and physics-based theories. Two research tasks will be conducted: In the first, we develop a statistical generative model that learns to characterize high-dimensional microstructure samples using low-dimensional features. We improve the data efficiency of a variational autoencoder by introducing a morphology loss to the training. We demonstrate that the resultant microstructure generator is morphology-aware when trained on a small set of material samples, and can effectively constrain the microstructure space during material design. In the second task, we investigate an active learning mechanism where new samples are acquired based on their violation to a theory-driven constraint on the physics-based model. We demonstrate using a topology optimization case that while data acquisition through the physics-based model is often expensive (e.g., obtaining microstructures through simulation or optimization processes), the evaluation of the constraint can be far more affordable (e.g., checking whether a solution is optimal or equilibrium). We show that this theory-driven learning algorithm can lead to much improved learning efficiency and generalization performance when such constraints can be derived. The outcomes of this research is a better understanding of how physics knowledge about material systems can be integrated into machine learning frameworks, in order to achieve more cost-effective and reliable learning of material representations and predictive models, which are essential to accelerate computational material design.
ContributorsCang, Ruijin (Author) / Ren, Yi (Thesis advisor) / Liu, Yongming (Committee member) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Nian, Qiong (Committee member) / Zhuang, Houlong (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Aging-related damage and failure in structures, such as fatigue cracking, corrosion, and delamination, are critical for structural integrity. Most engineering structures have embedded defects such as voids, cracks, inclusions from manufacturing. The properties and locations of embedded defects are generally unknown and hard to detect in complex engineering structures. Therefore, early detection of damage is beneficial for prognosis and risk management of aging infrastructure system.
Non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) are widely used for this purpose. Different types of NDT techniques have been proposed for the damage detection, such as optical image, ultrasound wave, thermography, eddy current, and microwave. The focus in this study is on the wave-based detection method, which is grouped into two major categories: feature-based damage detection and model-assisted damage detection. Both damage detection approaches have their own pros and cons. Feature-based damage detection is usually very fast and doesn’t involve in the solution of the physical model. The key idea is the dimension reduction of signals to achieve efficient damage detection. The disadvantage is that the loss of information due to the feature extraction can induce significant uncertainties and reduces the resolution. The resolution of the feature-based approach highly depends on the sensing path density. Model-assisted damage detection is on the opposite side. Model-assisted damage detection has the ability for high resolution imaging with limited number of sensing paths since the entire signal histories are used for damage identification. Model-based methods are time-consuming due to the requirement for the inverse wave propagation solution, which is especially true for the large 3D structures.
The motivation of the proposed method is to develop efficient and accurate model-based damage imaging technique with limited data. The special focus is on the efficiency of the damage imaging algorithm as it is the major bottleneck of the model-assisted approach. The computational efficiency is achieved by two complimentary components. First, a fast forward wave propagation solver is developed, which is verified with the classical Finite Element(FEM) solution and the speed is 10-20 times faster. Next, efficient inverse wave propagation algorithms is proposed. Classical gradient-based optimization algorithms usually require finite difference method for gradient calculation, which is prohibitively expensive for large degree of freedoms. An adjoint method-based optimization algorithms is proposed, which avoids the repetitive finite difference calculations for every imaging variables. Thus, superior computational efficiency can be achieved by combining these two methods together for the damage imaging. A coupled Piezoelectric (PZT) damage imaging model is proposed to include the interaction between PZT and host structure. Following the formulation of the framework, experimental validation is performed on isotropic and anisotropic material with defects such as cracks, delamination, and voids. The results show that the proposed method can detect and reconstruct multiple damage simultaneously and efficiently, which is promising to be applied to complex large-scale engineering structures.
Non-destructive testing (NDT) and structural health monitoring (SHM) are widely used for this purpose. Different types of NDT techniques have been proposed for the damage detection, such as optical image, ultrasound wave, thermography, eddy current, and microwave. The focus in this study is on the wave-based detection method, which is grouped into two major categories: feature-based damage detection and model-assisted damage detection. Both damage detection approaches have their own pros and cons. Feature-based damage detection is usually very fast and doesn’t involve in the solution of the physical model. The key idea is the dimension reduction of signals to achieve efficient damage detection. The disadvantage is that the loss of information due to the feature extraction can induce significant uncertainties and reduces the resolution. The resolution of the feature-based approach highly depends on the sensing path density. Model-assisted damage detection is on the opposite side. Model-assisted damage detection has the ability for high resolution imaging with limited number of sensing paths since the entire signal histories are used for damage identification. Model-based methods are time-consuming due to the requirement for the inverse wave propagation solution, which is especially true for the large 3D structures.
The motivation of the proposed method is to develop efficient and accurate model-based damage imaging technique with limited data. The special focus is on the efficiency of the damage imaging algorithm as it is the major bottleneck of the model-assisted approach. The computational efficiency is achieved by two complimentary components. First, a fast forward wave propagation solver is developed, which is verified with the classical Finite Element(FEM) solution and the speed is 10-20 times faster. Next, efficient inverse wave propagation algorithms is proposed. Classical gradient-based optimization algorithms usually require finite difference method for gradient calculation, which is prohibitively expensive for large degree of freedoms. An adjoint method-based optimization algorithms is proposed, which avoids the repetitive finite difference calculations for every imaging variables. Thus, superior computational efficiency can be achieved by combining these two methods together for the damage imaging. A coupled Piezoelectric (PZT) damage imaging model is proposed to include the interaction between PZT and host structure. Following the formulation of the framework, experimental validation is performed on isotropic and anisotropic material with defects such as cracks, delamination, and voids. The results show that the proposed method can detect and reconstruct multiple damage simultaneously and efficiently, which is promising to be applied to complex large-scale engineering structures.
ContributorsChang, Qinan (Author) / Liu, Yongming (Thesis advisor) / Mignolet, Marc (Committee member) / Chattopadhyay, Aditi (Committee member) / Yan, Hao (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This thesis evaluates the viability of an original design for a cost-effective wheel-mounted dynamometer for road vehicles. The goal is to show whether or not a device that generates torque and horsepower curves by processing accelerometer data collected at the edge of a wheel can yield results that are comparable to results obtained using a conventional chassis dynamometer. Torque curves were generated via the experimental method under a variety of circumstances and also obtained professionally by a precision engine testing company. Metrics were created to measure the precision of the experimental device's ability to consistently generate torque curves and also to compare the similarity of these curves to the professionally obtained torque curves. The results revealed that although the test device does not quite provide the same level of precision as the professional chassis dynamometer, it does create torque curves that closely resemble the chassis dynamometer torque curves and exhibit a consistency between trials comparable to the professional results, even on rough road surfaces. The results suggest that the test device provides enough accuracy and precision to satisfy the needs of most consumers interested in measuring their vehicle's engine performance but probably lacks the level of accuracy and precision needed to appeal to professionals.
ContributorsKing, Michael (Author) / Ren, Yi (Thesis director) / Spanias, Andreas (Committee member) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This thesis details the design and construction of a torque-controlled robotic gripper for use with the Pheeno swarm robotics platform. This project required expertise from several fields of study including: robotic design, programming, rapid prototyping, and control theory. An electronic Inertial Measurement Unit and a DC Motor were both used along with 3D printed plastic components and an electronic motor control board to develop a functional open-loop controlled gripper for use in collective transportation experiments. Code was developed that effectively acquired and filtered rate of rotation data alongside other code that allows for straightforward control of the DC motor through experimentally derived relationships between the voltage applied to the DC motor and the torque output of the DC motor. Additionally, several versions of the physical components are described through their development.
ContributorsMohr, Brennan (Author) / Berman, Spring (Thesis director) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / School for Engineering of Matter,Transport & Enrgy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Performance evaluation and characterization of lithium-ion cells under simulated PHEVs' drive cycles
Description
Increasing demand for reducing the stress on fossil fuels has motivated automotive industries to shift towards sustainable modes of transport through electric and hybrid electric vehicles. Most fuel efficient cars of year 2016 are hybrid vehicles as reported by environmental protection agency. Hybrid vehicles operate with internal combustion engine and electric motors powered by batteries, and can significantly improve fuel economy due to downsizing of the engine. Whereas, Plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have an additional feature compared to hybrid vehicles i.e. recharging batteries through external power outlets. Among hybrid powertrains, lithium-ion batteries have emerged as a major electrochemical storage source for propulsion of vehicles.
In PHEVs, batteries operate under charge sustaining and charge depleting mode based on torque requirement and state of charge. In the current article, 26650 lithium-ion cells were cycled extensively at 25 and 50 oC under charge sustaining mode to monitor capacity and cell impedance values followed by analyzing the Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cathode material by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). High frequency resistance measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was found to increase significantly under high temperature cycling, leading to power fading. No phase change in LiFePO4 cathode material is observed after 330 cycles at elevated temperature under charge sustaining mode from the XRD analysis. However, there was significant change in crystallite size of the cathode active material after charge/discharge cycling with charge sustaining mode. Additionally, 18650 lithium-ion cells were tested under charge depleting mode to monitor capacity values.
In PHEVs, batteries operate under charge sustaining and charge depleting mode based on torque requirement and state of charge. In the current article, 26650 lithium-ion cells were cycled extensively at 25 and 50 oC under charge sustaining mode to monitor capacity and cell impedance values followed by analyzing the Lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cathode material by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). High frequency resistance measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy was found to increase significantly under high temperature cycling, leading to power fading. No phase change in LiFePO4 cathode material is observed after 330 cycles at elevated temperature under charge sustaining mode from the XRD analysis. However, there was significant change in crystallite size of the cathode active material after charge/discharge cycling with charge sustaining mode. Additionally, 18650 lithium-ion cells were tested under charge depleting mode to monitor capacity values.
ContributorsBadami, Pavan Pramod (Author) / Kannan, Arunachala Mada (Thesis advisor) / Huang, Huei Ping (Thesis advisor) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Tolerance specification for manufacturing components from 3D models is a tedious task and often requires expertise of “detailers”. The work presented here is a part of a larger ongoing project aimed at automating tolerance specification to aid less experienced designers by producing consistent geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T). Tolerance specification can be separated into two major tasks; tolerance schema generation and tolerance value specification. This thesis will focus on the latter part of automated tolerance specification, namely tolerance value allocation and analysis. The tolerance schema (sans values) required prior to these tasks have already been generated by the auto-tolerancing software. This information is communicated through a constraint tolerance feature graph file developed previously at Design Automation Lab (DAL) and is consistent with ASME Y14.5 standard.
The objective of this research is to allocate tolerance values to ensure that the assemblability conditions are satisfied. Assemblability refers to “the ability to assemble/fit a set of parts in specified configuration given a nominal geometry and its corresponding tolerances”. Assemblability is determined by the clearances between the mating features. These clearances are affected by accumulation of tolerances in tolerance loops and hence, the tolerance loops are extracted first. Once tolerance loops have been identified initial tolerance values are allocated to the contributors in these loops. It is highly unlikely that the initial allocation would satisfice assemblability requirements. Overlapping loops have to be simultaneously satisfied progressively. Hence, tolerances will need to be re-allocated iteratively. This is done with the help of tolerance analysis module.
The tolerance allocation and analysis module receives the constraint graph which contains all basic dimensions and mating constraints from the generated schema. The tolerance loops are detected by traversing the constraint graph. The initial allocation distributes the tolerance budget computed from clearance available in the loop, among its contributors in proportion to the associated nominal dimensions. The analysis module subjects the loops to 3D parametric variation analysis and estimates the variation parameters for the clearances. The re-allocation module uses hill climbing heuristics derived from the distribution parameters to select a loop. Re-allocation Of the tolerance values is done using sensitivities and the weights associated with the contributors in the stack.
Several test cases have been run with this software and the desired user input acceptance rates are achieved. Three test cases are presented and output of each module is discussed.
The objective of this research is to allocate tolerance values to ensure that the assemblability conditions are satisfied. Assemblability refers to “the ability to assemble/fit a set of parts in specified configuration given a nominal geometry and its corresponding tolerances”. Assemblability is determined by the clearances between the mating features. These clearances are affected by accumulation of tolerances in tolerance loops and hence, the tolerance loops are extracted first. Once tolerance loops have been identified initial tolerance values are allocated to the contributors in these loops. It is highly unlikely that the initial allocation would satisfice assemblability requirements. Overlapping loops have to be simultaneously satisfied progressively. Hence, tolerances will need to be re-allocated iteratively. This is done with the help of tolerance analysis module.
The tolerance allocation and analysis module receives the constraint graph which contains all basic dimensions and mating constraints from the generated schema. The tolerance loops are detected by traversing the constraint graph. The initial allocation distributes the tolerance budget computed from clearance available in the loop, among its contributors in proportion to the associated nominal dimensions. The analysis module subjects the loops to 3D parametric variation analysis and estimates the variation parameters for the clearances. The re-allocation module uses hill climbing heuristics derived from the distribution parameters to select a loop. Re-allocation Of the tolerance values is done using sensitivities and the weights associated with the contributors in the stack.
Several test cases have been run with this software and the desired user input acceptance rates are achieved. Three test cases are presented and output of each module is discussed.
ContributorsBiswas, Deepanjan (Author) / Shah, Jami J. (Thesis advisor) / Davidson, Joseph (Committee member) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
ABSTRACT
A large fraction of the total energy consumption in the world comes from heating and cooling of buildings. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings to reduce the needs of seasonal heating and cooling is one of the major challenges in sustainable development. In general, the energy efficiency depends on the geometry and material of the buildings. To explore a framework for accurately assessing this dependence, detailed 3-D thermofluid simulations are performed by systematically sweeping the parameter space spanned by four parameters: the size of building, thickness and material of wall, and fractional size of window. The simulations incorporate realistic boundary conditions of diurnally-varying temperatures from observation, and the effect of fluid flow with explicit thermal convection inside the building. The outcome of the numerical simulations is synthesized into a simple map of an index of energy efficiency in the parameter space which can be used by stakeholders to quick look-up the energy efficiency of a proposed design of a building before its construction. Although this study only considers a special prototype of buildings, the framework developed in this work can potentially be used for a wide range of buildings and applications.
A large fraction of the total energy consumption in the world comes from heating and cooling of buildings. Improving the energy efficiency of buildings to reduce the needs of seasonal heating and cooling is one of the major challenges in sustainable development. In general, the energy efficiency depends on the geometry and material of the buildings. To explore a framework for accurately assessing this dependence, detailed 3-D thermofluid simulations are performed by systematically sweeping the parameter space spanned by four parameters: the size of building, thickness and material of wall, and fractional size of window. The simulations incorporate realistic boundary conditions of diurnally-varying temperatures from observation, and the effect of fluid flow with explicit thermal convection inside the building. The outcome of the numerical simulations is synthesized into a simple map of an index of energy efficiency in the parameter space which can be used by stakeholders to quick look-up the energy efficiency of a proposed design of a building before its construction. Although this study only considers a special prototype of buildings, the framework developed in this work can potentially be used for a wide range of buildings and applications.
ContributorsJain, Gaurav (Author) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Thesis advisor) / Ren, Yi (Committee member) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016