page 9

2. MECHANICAL DESIGN

DI:2.1 BASIC PHILOSOPHY

• Philosophy is an important concept, because design is basically making inexact decisions, in an

unpredictable environment.

• Some basic rules to follow are,

- use standard materials, processes, components, fasteners etc. where possible
- use looser tolerances where possible
- minimize parts
- only design what the specifications/function requires
-

• Typical mechanical design problems can be classified as,

- selection design - given certain criteria select a suitable component.
- configuration design - how are given components arranged to satisfy given criteria.
- parametric design - given a known relationship (equations, graphs, tables, etc.) and con-
strain (limits, objectives, etc) we can calculate an exact dimension (or other param-
eter values) for a design.
- original design - new concepts must be generated.
- redesign - a design must be changed conceptually to obtain better performance.

2.2 TYPICAL MECHANICAL FUNCTIONS

• This list below can be used to jog thoughts about possible mechanical concepts. [based on Ull-
man]