A Fiimy Material Selection Syst,em for Mcchariical

Design

Jean-Luc Koning
May 28, 1994
CML-R1-TR-94-22

Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890

Copyfight @ I V Y 4 CMI! Robotics Irwlitute

This research was supported by INRIA, Domahe de \~'ololnceau,h c q u c n c u u r t , B.P.

10.5. 78153 Le Chesnay cedex, France.
 Abstract

This paper c.oncentratcs on two types of mat,erial-related reasoning that occurs

in engineering design: selection and substatution. Selection is based on criteria
set out by thc designer and is often associated with the process of designing
new art.ifact.s from scratch. Substitution, on the other hand, is done when new
designs are created by adapting and re-using parts of previous designs. This
involves re-evaluating the reasons for a particular material that was used in thc
base design: and determining whether the same, or new criteria are relevant in
the target design. Once the new criteria are established, appropriate materials
arc selected and substituted. The substitution step, hence, subsumes the selec-
tion task. tVe present a material selection/snbstilution system that is used as
part of a larger case-based design environment. The material selection syst,em
helps the designer adapt a previous designs by suggesting material substitutions
t,liat better snit the target application. The system is intended t o provide sup-
port, right from the conceptual to the detailed stages of design, and can reason
about material properties expressed in both numerical and qualitative terms.
The system relies on the material selection charts developed by Prof. Aahby
of Cambridge University. To enable qualitative reasoning about the charts, we
have developed an cncoding based on fuzzy set theory. This allows access of
materials using specifications expressed in terms of fuzzy orders of magnitude.
Contents

1 Introduction 6
1.1 What. is this Report About? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 6
1.2 Quick Survey of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 6
1.3 Illustrative Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 1
1.4 Select.ion and Substitutio~lof Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Outline of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 10

2 The Material Selection Problem 11

2.1 Overview of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Material Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Ashby’s Selection Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

3 Rcpresentation of t h e Charts 16
3.1 Four Possible Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.1 Continuous envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
3.1.2 Discret envelopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3.1.3 Rectangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 . 1 . 4 Polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.1.5 Fuzzy contours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2U
3.2 Polygons for Material Domains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2.1 Specifying property boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2.2 Compiling the d a t a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4 Description of t h e Materials Selection System 25

4.1 Material Information Attached to a Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1.1 Justifications in the retrieved case . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4.1.2 Inferencc of justifications for the adapted case . . . . . . . 27
4.2 Fuzzy Orders of Magnitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.1 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4.2.2 Partitioning a set of values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.2.3 An int.erface for acquiring new orders of magnitude . . . . 32
4.3 Combining Matching Degrees for Mat.erials Class Selection . . . . 34

1
 4.3.1 Queries for accessing materials classes . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4.3.2 Combining matching degree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3.3 Example of material selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

5 Description of the Program 39

5 . 1 Data Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1.1 Mechanical and engineering properties . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.1.2 Materials classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.1.3 Modes of loading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.1.4 Compiled data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
5.2 Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.2.1 Data coherence verification and knowledge base initializa-
tion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
5.2.2 Querying the data base . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

6 Conclusion 44

A Material Selection Charts 47

A.1 Materials Selection Chart for Light Stiff Components . . . . . . . 47
A.2 Materials Selection Chart for Light Strong Components . . . . . 47
A.3 Materials Selection Chart for Light Fracture-Resistant Components 49
A.4 Materials Selection Chart for Cheap, Stiff Components . . . . . . 19
A.5 Materials Selection Chart for Cheap. Strong Components . . . . 49
A . 6 Materials Selection Chart for Components Resistant t o Corrosion 50

B Materials Classes and Properties 55

B.l Material Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-_
DJ
B.2 Material Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

2
List of Figures
1.1 Sccsaw in a playground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #

1 2 Hot and cold water faucet using the -saw concept . . . . . . . . 8

1 . 3 Sketch of a material selection chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 . 1 Ashby material selection chart for light stiff components (courtesy) . 13

3.1 Discret representation of a region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2 Discret represent.ation of a region on a logarithmic grid . . . . 18
3.3 Representation by rectangles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.4 Representation by polygons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.5 Representation by polygons of the worst case . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.6 Crisp set. of engineeriug polymers denuities . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.7 Fuzzy set of engineering polymers densities . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 . 8 Fuzzy representation of Ashby’s charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.9 List of threshold values for property P . . . . . . . . . . ... 23

1.1 Seesaw concept for a water faucet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

4.2 Example of non-fuzzy orders of magnitude . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.? Example of fuzzy orders of magnitude
. . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.4 Example of wrong fuzzy partition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
4.5 Example of fuzzy orders of magnitude on a logarithmic scale . . 31
4.6 Fuzzy compound orders of magnitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
4.7 ‘I’hree-clinicnsional representation of fuzzy orders of magnitude . 32
4 . 8 User defined orders of magnitude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
4.9 Matching degree between a material class K and the order of
magnitude A uf some property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.10 Matching degree between a material class K and the order of
rriagnitude A of some other property . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

.5 .l Cbhcrence checking on fuzzy orders of magnitude. 42

-4.1 Material selection chart for light strong components (courtesy) . 48

3
A.2 Matcrial selection chart for light fracture-resistant components
(courtesy ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5I
4 . 3 Material selection chart for cheap, stiff c0rnponent.s (courtesy). . 52
-4.4 Material select,ion chart for cheap, strong components (courtesy). 53
A.5 ?daterial select,ion chart for components resistant to corrosion
(courtesy). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

4
List of Tables

2.1 Sample of propertycombinations which determine performance

in design (courtesy). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.1 Kecesuary d a t a to be acquired . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2'2

3 2 Compiled data for a particular property P . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.1 Materials satisfying the three behavioral properties . . . . . . . . 38

5
Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 What is this Report About?

This report describes a general system for material selection. This system has
becn developcd in the framework of the CADET project. It is originally intended
for material adaptation when old designs are to be reused in new contexts. The
purpose of this system is to help designers pick up the right type of material
given some constraints on a mechanical artifact. This system is built on a
knowledge base that makes use of materials selection charts from the mechanical
engineering field. Queries t o this d a t a base are embedded with imprecision.e'!!
handle this aspect by relying on fuzzy set theory.

1.2 Quick Survey of the Problem

Mechanical design is the act of devising an artifact t h a t satisfics a useful need,
in other words, that performs some function. This requires, in part, a deep
understanding of material propert,ies An engineer conceiving a new mechanical
artifact can choose from among 50,000 different materials [Ashby: 1989bj.
This paper concentrates on twu t,ypes of material-related reasoning that oc-
curs in engineering dmign: selection and substilation. A material is selected
based on criteria set out, by the designer. At the early stages of the design pro-
cess. criteria that define the properties of the required material are usually quite
vague. For example! a designer might. know that the material for an artifact
component should be of high strength and very high fracture toughness, bul
t,he actual values for E (strength) or K (fracture toughness) may not be known.
In addition, a designer may have certain g o d s that require t h e minimization
of weight and cost. Material selection is often associated with the designing
of new artifacts horn scratch. As a designer proceeds from the conceptual de-
sign stage, through embodiment, and finally to detailed design. the criteria for

6
material selecsion arc developed and refined. A large part o f cngineeririg de-
sign: however! is case-baTed. Yew designs are created by adapting and reusing
p a r k of previous designs in a new context, or application. Part of the process
of adapting a prior [base) design to a new (target) design is the subst,itntion
of materials in the base, to suit the conditions of the target application. This
involves re-evaluating the reaSons why a particular material was used in the
ha..e. and whether the same or new criteria are relevant in the target. Once
the ncw criteria are established, appropriate materials are selected and suhsti-
tilted. Thc snbslitution step, hcnce, subsumes the selection task. For examplc,
if a honsohold Oven were being adapted for an aerospace application, one would
haw t,o reevaluate the material choices based on strict weight considerations,
possibly replacing heavy steel components by ceramic coated aluminum o n e s

1.3 Illustrative Example

l,et, UY illustrate this problematic with a detailed example that we will refer t,o
later 011 in lhis report. From that example, we willsee (in Chapter 4) how a base
case (a see-saw) is reused in a target problem (a faucet). Material justifications
in the base will be modified to suit the target context that will lead to the
selection o f new materials.
Consider the simple see-saw shown in Figure 1.1. The -saw's main com-
ponent is a beam, hinged a t its center. Material selection for the beam is based
on a variety o f criteria: since it is intended for children: it should not be too
heavy; since it is intended for outdoor use it should be water resistant; it should
not rnst; it shoiild not cost too much; and it's color should not fade in the
sunlight,

t-

Figure 1.1: See-saw in a playground.

The see-saw ca5e is represented in the database as a frame where the varions
attrihules (dimensions, material types, etc.) as well as their intrinsic reason(s)
are stored (sce Section 4.1).
Consider the target application for the see-saw: a hot and cold water faucet.
Figure 1.2 depicts n faucet that utilizes the see-saw principle. The rotation

7
in t,be vertical plane regulates t,he relative quantity of hot and cold water. The
vertical nroLionof its hinge increass or decreases the combined flow. The Caucct
represents a target, application where the environmental conditions are quite
dilTercnt from that of the see-saw in the playground.

Figure 1.2: Hot and cold water faucet using the see-saw concept.

Although the (see-saw) principle is identical in both cases the material the
faucet, should be made of does not necessarily meet the same rcquirements. On
the onc hand some requirements for rhe see-saw may no longer be valid: and
on t,he other hand some new requirements may crop up. For example, since
the heam is of a much smaller dimension its cost may become less important.
Also, the material may have to be resistant to certain environments if used with
chemical products.
Clearly, thc problem is to come up with the material(s) that meet, the set of
requirements. This calls for typical engineering knowledge and reasoning ability
on materials. Both types of informatlion are provided in the materials selection
charts settled by M. Ashby.

1.4 Selection and Substitution of Material

The selection step is done using special ma,terial selection charts that werc de-
veloped by Prof. Ashby of Cambridge University [Ashby, 1989al
Theses chast,s show the relative and absolute positions of various material
classes wifh respect to a tradcoff between two different properties. For example
the sketch in Figure 1.3 presents the positions of the material classes A, L1: C ,
D based on their strengt,h and density.
The oblique line L crases material classes with the same strength to densky
tradeoff. The higher this line on the chart the better the ratio. Looking Cur
materials with a particular combined property (tradeoff between t v o properties)
is a problem that, involves two kinds of imprecision. First. the malerial classes
plorted o n the charts represent the smallest area containing all t.he materials of
some class. This means that within a class envelope there may be some regions

8
 Strength L1

I b
I
Density

Figure 1.3: Sketch of a material selection chart

that do not correspond to any actual material. Secondly, one rarely looks for
materials with a precise value of the combined property but rather Cor materials
within acceptable ranges of values, some of these values being more appropriate
t,han others.
This notion is exemplified in Figure 1.3. A designer may look for materials
t h a t lie between two oblique lines L1 and L z . The area between L1 and La is the
preferred rangc of values for the combined property. The ranges of values next
t,o lines L1 and L.1 (shown by the shaded area on Figure 1.3) represent values
closc 60 the preferred range. Materials in these areas should not be t,otally
rejected although they do not pertain to the set of the preferred materials. This
defines three conceptually different regions: (1) above the upper shaded area or
under the lower shaded area are the materials one is definitely not interested
in, (2) materials between L1 and L2 definitely meet the required combined
property. arid ( 3 ) the materials crossed by one of the shaded are= but ontside
t,he interval [ L l , L z ] are acceptable to a certain extent (they are not totally
rejected). Actually, in this third region, the closer the material t o t,he stripe
[L.1:L?] (the preferred threshold) the better.
This type of imprecision can easily be handled by making use of fuzzy set
theory. It would enable the ranking of material classes with respect to their
degree of preference given some property. For example, one could say that
materials class B meets the requirements more adequately than materials class
A arid much more than materials class C. Also, the fuzzy set theory provides a
means t o aggregate several material rankings relative to different requirements
(see Sect,ion 4.3)

9
1.5 Outline of the Report
The rest of the report is organized as follows. Chapter 2 presents the usage of
the materials selection charts. In Chapter 3 several computer representations of
the charts are given and discussed. One of them ir selected to be implemented
i n the system that will actually perform material modifications. Chapter 4 is
lhe key chapter of this document. It introduces the not.ion of justifications
attached to a case and highlight its importance. This same chapter explains
in detail fuzzy orders of magnitude and also focuses on the system capabilities.
Thc queries the syst,ern enables are fully explained and an example of material
selection is shown Chapter 5 gives an overview of the program. T h e purpose
of t h a t chapter is t o e a e the possible re-use of the code written for our system.
Chapter 6 gives some concluding remarks and states the place such a system
has in a case-based design application like CADET. Appendix A shows the
material selection charts that our system uses so far. Appendix 8 s u m s up all
the materials classes and materials properties taken into account by the system

10
Chapter 2

The Material Selection

PI:o blem

'l'his section presents the material selection problem in mechanical design. For
a more detailed explanation see [Ashby and Jones, 19801, [Ashby, 19911. Only
some aspects relevant to an understanding of the system are presented here.

2.1 Overview of the Problem

Mechanical design is usually divided in three stages ([Ashby, 1989L>]):

th.e conceptual dessgn stage; approximate data need for selecting the pos-
sible range of materials.

the ernbodmen1 design siage; reducing to a small subset t h e large material

set found previously. This second stage requires data at a greater level of
precision and detail.

t k e detailed design. slagr; making use of still higher levels of precision and
detail! such as accurate d a t a from handbooks and data sheet,s provided by
material suppliers.

This paper is only concerned with the first two levels. The purpose of the
system we describe here is to find materials that parts of a device should be
made of and t,hat best fit t h e specifications ror t,he whole artifact. Finding the
exact best material is not that important sirice this choice may still be altered
due to the taking into consideration of parts interactions.

11
2.2 Material Classes
At Ihc conceptual design stage all niatcrials should be considered as potential
candidat,es. They are conventionally c.lassified into nine broad classes: engineer-
ing alloys, engineering polymers, engineering ceramics, engineering composites,
porous ceramics, glasses, woods. elastomers, polymer roams (cf. Section B.1).
Making a select,ion among these material classes is usually driven by neces-
sary constraints s u c h as: i t must operate a t high temperature, must, be cheap,
light, for instance. In other words, materials must satisfy certain individual
properties. At the embodiment design stage, the engineering designer seeks to
identify the design-limiting combination of material properties. One way of ef-
ficiently examining the relationships between the properties of all nine classes
is by referring t o Ashby's material selection charts.

2.3 Ashby's Selection Charts

The primary advantage of these charts is their simplicity and elegance. They
display combinations of properties and allow a. designer to visually compare
and pick classes of materials with properties within specified ranges. Moreover,
materials with maximum performance can easily be identified.
The idea, illustrated by Figure 2.1, is to have one property (the young's
modulus in this cme: property of elasticity whose symbol is E ) plotted against
another (the density: symbol p ) on a logarithmic scale. Each class of rna-
terials, occupies a characteristic part of the chart. A class is enclosed in a
property-envelope. Within each class, data are plotted for a representative set
of materials, chosen both t,o span the full range of behavior for that class and
to include t h e m m t widely used members in it. In this way, the envelope for a
class encloses dat,a for all members of the class.
The performance, in an engineering sense, of load-bearing components is
not limited by a single property but by one or more combinations of them.
For example, t h e l i g h t s t rotating cylinder that will carry a given tensile load
without exceeding a given deflection is that with the greatest value of E / p .
The lightest rod that will support a given pressure with minimum deflection is
one with the greatest valne of E * / p . The lightest panel which will support. a
given compressive load without buckling is one with the greatest value of E f / p .
Figurc 2.1 shows how the chart can be used to select materials t h a t maximize
any one of these c.omhinations.
As a result, of logarithrnicscales. the set of points where these ratios have for
value a particular constant C are straight lines even though the lines describe
non-linear relationship between the properties. The three different types of
slope are shown on Figure 2.1. They are labeled as "Guide Lines for Material
Selection". Translating the appropriate guide line sideways leads to idcntify
points with another constant value for the corresponding ratio (i.e., property
Figure 2.1: Ashby material selection chart for light stiff components (courtesy).

combination).
It is then easy t o pick off the subset of materials that are optimal for each
loading geometry. For any straight-edge laid parallel to the E ? / p = C line, all
the materials which lie on the line will perform equally well as a light plate loaded
in compression; those above are better (they can withstand greater loads), those
below are worse. If the straight edge is translated towards the top left corner
of the diagram while retaining the same slope, the choice narrows. The same
procedure, applied to the rotating cylinder ( E / p ) or rod in bending ( E i l p ) ,
leads t o different equivalences and optimal subsets of materials.
Classes of materials crossed by the same line are equally good with respect
t o the criteria the straight edge represents. The criteria for optimal materials
selection that we are going to use here are summarized in Table 2.1. They all

13
appear on one of the malerial selection charts. The purpose of Table 2.1 is to
display the most irriportant criteria given the mode of loading of the artifact.
Among t.he mechanical and thermal properties, there are Len that are of
primary irnportance, both in characterizing the material, and in engineering
design. In this paper, we have used Ashby’s charts that refer to the following
properties: young’s modulus, density, strength, fracture toughness, cost, and
corrosion resishnce. Thcse charts are explained in Appendix A .

14
Table 2.1: Sample of property-combinations which determine performance in
design (courtesy).

15
Chapter 3

Representat ion of the

Charts

3.1 Four Possible Representations

As seen in Chapt,er 2 the charts’ goal is t,o display the full range of mat,erial
properties a t relatively low precision. Because of this approximation, material
classes tend to have a rather rounded shape. In the following sub-sections, four
possible ways of representing the material class envelopes are presented in view
OC a computer exploitation.

3.1.1 Continuous envelopes

One technique consists in scanning the charts and keeping hack of all the points
constituting the envelope. This is similar to what is done in the field of image
synthesis where object surfaces are plotted point by point. Needless to say this
representation is space consuming.
The chief advantage of Ashby’s charts is that it quickly and efficiently guides
n s t,o a subset of materials worth considering, Le., that maximize a combined
criterion, and m&e sure not to overlook a promising candidate. The repreuen-
tation suggested here generates a great amount of d a t a whose processing con-
sequently leads t o slow information retrieval. Evidently the tradeoff between
data accuracy and processing time should be in favor of t,he second one.
Another argument for dropping this type of represent,ation relates to the fact,
that, the charts themselves do not display precise information. At the conceptual
and embodiment design stage approximate d a t a are sufficient to determine lhe
classes of potentially interesting materials. Full precision is only required in the
detailed design stage.
3.1.2 Discret envelopes
Anot,her technique from image processing consists in representing regions by
contiguous squares. The image is applied on a grid. Any square with more than
x percents of their surface covered by a specific region is considered to belong to
the region. When x equals 0 then the set of contiguous squares represents the
srnallest siirface of the grid containing the region. If one imposes thc squares
to have hundred percents of their surface covercd by the region then the set
of contiguous squares represents the largest discrete surface contained in t,he
region. r\ reasonable choice for 3: i s 50%. See Figure 3.1.

.._....,__
C

Figure 3.1: Discret. representation of a region

With t,his method a chart becomes a two dimensional array whose elements
contain Lhe name(s) of the classes of materials that would be plotted on the
corresponding sqnare. T h e logarithmicscales used for the charts give rise to Lwo
problems. First, if one wants to use the same method with the logarithmic grid
one ends up approximating too roughly the regions showing material classes. See
Figure 3.2.. The squares do not have the same size. Second, one can avoid t,his
drawback by deciding to take into account a linear scale. But this alternative
lcads to storing a huge amount of data. For instance the scale for the strength
property goes from 0.1 to 10,000 which makes 100,000 echelons of size 0.1
(cf. Figure A.1).
'These two reamus prompted us to abandon lhis representalion.

3.1.3 Rectangles
'I'he t.wo representalions suggested so far require a great deal of data and com-
put,ation. Their advantage is that they provide accurate information.
For the sake ol simplicity one c.an represents these regions by rectangles
where parallel edges correspond to lower and upper bounds of a class in the
chart.

17
 Figure 3.2: Discret representat,ion of a region on a logarithmic grid.

With this representation one faces now a lack of precision. Figure 3.3 high-
lights this drawback. The same representation would be identical for far different
classes of materials. The shaded area does not correspond t o any material of
the class.

......... ........

......... ........

Figure 3.3: Representation by rectangles.

3.1.4 Polygons
The given shape of t,he material class envelopes resemble rounded polygons. One
may t,ake advantage of this fact and approximate them by true polygons where
each edge corresponds to bounds of the properties shown on the chart. In the
case of Figure 2.1 the chart presents five properties: young’s modulus, density,
and t,hree types of stiffness ( E l p , E i j p , E f l p ) . Thus, any class of materials
on the chart would be represented by an IO-edge polygon. Figurc 3.4 shows

18
a n example of such a polygonal rrpresentatlon with only one type of stiffness.
This is R 6-edge polygon, the four other edges are introduced by the other two
guide-lines.

Figure 3.4: Representation by polygons

On rishby's charts material class envelopes are naturally either vertical (par-
allel t o the ordinate axis): horizontal (parallel t o the abscissa axis) or slopcd to
the righl (rather parallel to t,he combined property). Therefore choosing these
axis to define the polygons leads to a reasonable approximation of t,he actual
regions. The worst c a x (rigure 3.5) would arise when a class envelope iu normal
to the slant-wise axis. This case doesn't appear on any material selection chart.

Figure 3.5:Representation by polygons of the worst. case

Y'his ~ y p cof representation does not have t,he drawback of requiring a huge
amount of data, and also allows a rather fair approximation of t h e regions it
represents.

19
3.1.5 Fuzzy contours
Ashby's charts are not a source of numerical data for precise analysis, they are
approximate. The above snggested represen tation does not take into consider-
ation the imprecision of the charts. Fuzzy set theory (Dubois and Prade, 19881
[Zadch, 19651 can help remedy this problem.
Let us first recall some hasic notions. A set is fuzzy if i t s boundaries are
not precisely delimited. This concept of fuzzy sets generalizes the concept oC
ordinary sets. A fuzzy set A on a universe Cl is characterized by its membership
fimct.ion: p~ : Cl + [0,1]. For all w belonging t o Q , pa(*) is t h e extent t,o which
w belong l o .A. If p n ( w ) = 0 it doesn't, belong to it at all, and if ~ A ( u )= 1: it.
belongs fully. If p n ( w ) E ( 0 , l ) : it belongs more or less to A .
Let us illustrate the difference between crisp and fuzzy boundary represen-
tat.ion with an example drawn from the material selcction domain. where A is
the range of densities for the class of engineering polymers and C2, in this case.
is the set of all possible densities. When A is a crisp set, the representation GC
ils characteristic function looks like on Figure 3.6 (..e suppose that the class of
densities of engineering polymers range from .8Mg/rn3 to 2.0hfg/m3).

densities for the class of engineering polymers

" I t - - - - - - - : R

Figure 3.6: Crisp set of engineering polymers densities

When t h e boundaries of A are fuzzy the representation of its characteristic

fiinction look like on Figure 3.7. Certain densities are typical of engineering
polymers (between 1.0Mg/m3 and 1.8A4g/m3), other densities are typical to a
smaller extent (at the sides of the and others are not densities of
engineering polymers whatsoever.

densaiaes faor the class of engineering polymcrs

- - - - - - -- -

8 1.0 1.8 2.0

Figure X i : Fuzzy set of engineering polymers densities.

20
 T h e set { w E n I p~ > 0} is called the support of A; this is the set of v a l u a
for w thaL belong to A a t least to a certain extent ((0.8,2) in Figure 3 . 5 ) . 'The
set {a E 0 I p~ = 1) is called the core of A; this is the set of values for w that.
cornplet.ely bclong t o .4 ((1.0,1,8) on Figure 3.7).
In a trvo-dimension universe the core and the support of a fuzzy set become
surfaces. This is the case encountered with Ashby's charts since the clnsses of
materials are plotted against two properties at the same time. The membership
function of fuzzy sets looks then like a trapezoid volume (see Figure 3.8).

/
Figure 3.8: Fuzzy representation of Ashby's charts,

This type of representation is not in opposition to the previous ones. Ac-

tually it extends them by providing a way to take into accounl the imprecise
nature of the charts. Any of the previous crisp representations can be extended
to a fuzzy one. This only requires two contours instead of one: one delimiting
the support, the other one delimiting the core of the domain.

3.2 Polygons for Material Domains

As stated earlier the representation to he adopted should preserve data accuracy
and allow efficient computation. The best tradeoff seems to be at,tained by the
polygon represen tation since it doesn't require a, t,rrmendous amount of data
to code the niaterial domains, and it also enables quick retrieval of information
which is the primary purpose of the charts.

21
 Here, only a crisp representation by polygons h s been envisaged. Let u s
uoticc that the fuzzy counterpart would not have led t o much more complex
computations. In that case material domain would have been represent,ed by
t,rvo polygons. \t‘e didn’t choose the frizzy representation because Ashby’s chart,s
only give information concerning the contour delimiting the support (there‘s n o
way to infer the core of such sets given the charts). Indeed, no material of a
class may be found outside the envelope of the class.
In the pdygon-type representation, edges of material domains corrcspond
to upper and lower bounds of the properties shown on t h e chart. Encoding the
charts t,hen conies down to a two step process. First. the various bounds must
be defined for any property of a material class. Second, these data must h e
compiled to ease information retrieval.

3.2.1 Specifying property boundaries

Property boundaries are represented in a two-dimensional array where colurrins
correspond to properties and rows to material classes. Each cell contains the
lower and the upper bound for the related property and mat.erials cl,lss. ‘The
combined properties shown in the charts are also included in that array. Some
cells may stay empty when the informationis not available. Table 3.1 shows the
necessary data. Ifif(&’) and z 1 ~ ( Pare
) respectively the lower and upper bound
of property P for materials clavs A [ .

Table 3.1: Necessary data to be acquired.

This way of storing d a t a is not suited for fast access to the ‘best’ material
c l a s . One has to look up every possible class before retricving the right one.
On the other hand with Ashby’s charts one directly looks a t the correct, region
of the chart. If one wants a high (resp. low) value of the property shown on the
horizontal axis then one focuses on the right-hand (resp. left-hand) side of the
chart without even taking into consideration materials on the left.-hand (resp.
right-hand) side. If one wants a high (resp. low) value of the property shown
on the vertical axis then one focuses on t,he top (resp. bottom) half of the chart
u-ithout even taking into considcration materials on the bottom (resp. top) half.
If one wants a high (rcsp. low) value for t h e combined property one focuscs on
the top left (resp. hott,om right) corner of the chart. Sce Figures 2.1, A . l , A.2,
A.3, A.4.

22
 'Ihe tabular d a t a is thcn compiled to speed access.

3.2.2 Compiling the data

In the two examples just qnot,ed the materials are retrieved via their properties.
A c.onvenient way to store the data is thus by properties. For each property we
rank the materials according to their range of values. Since tN.0 different ranges
may overlap onc needs t o keep t.rack of bhreshold values, Le., values corrmpond-
ing to lower or upper bound of properties of materials classes. Figure 3.9 gives
an exarriple of such a list of thresholds for a particular property P . Materials
classes A ; B , (7 and D ate plotted according to their range Cor property P .

Figure 3.9: List of threshold values for property ' I

In ordcr to improve the retrieval of the right material given some charac-
teristics ( e & low stiffness, high strength! etc.) pieces of solution may be pre-
compiled and attached to the threshold values. By pieces of solution we mean
information such as (1) the material classes that appear beforr the threshold,
(2) t,hr ones that appear afler. and (3) the ones that overlap it. These threc
lists are called less, greater and equal respectively. See Table 3.2.
A compilation of this type is made for each property. Looking for mat,eri-
als with a particular characteristic (for instance: density less than . S M g / m 3 ,
strength c q u d to ~ O O M P Qor stiffness gnater t,han 3 x lo3) becomes straight-
forward. If the value being looked for is a threshold value for that property the
answer is given by the corresponding slot (either less, e p 0 l or gmaler). Othcr-
wise, the answer is derived from the three lists of material classes att,ached to
the threshold values just prcceding and just following the value looked for. The
+
iriterscction between the list, greaterlt) and ltss(t 1), where t and t + 1 are
two adjaceiit t,hresholds, givcs the list of all the material classes whose property
+
value belongs to ( t , i I).
T w o default threshold values are added to the table of compiled inCormat,ion
for each property. 'The first threshold gets the smallest possible value, its slot

23
 Table 3.2: Compiled data for a particular property P

named ymnter contains all the material classes like t h e slot named less attached
to the last threshold. The obher threshold (the last one) gets the maximum
possible value for the particular property.
One could divide the lists of threshold values in several parts corresponding
to different orders of magnitudes in order to facilitate the access t,o malerials
whose property is in a particular range like low density, high stiffness, medium
strength, etc. This idea is exploited in a slightly different way. A more detailed
discussion iu found in Chapter 4.

24
Chapter 4

Description of the
Materials Selection System
In chapter 1 we have succinctly seen a n example showing the reusing of the
see-saw coucept for a water faucet (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1: See-saw concept for a water faucet.

The process of finding the right material Cor the water faucet involves the
following steps:
1 . 1,ook up thc material and material justifications of the base case,
2. J,ook up the features of the target artifact,
3. Deduce (possibly new) mat,erial properties the base component should
possess in the target. context.
4 Infer t,he fuzzy values these propcrties should have.
5,Suggcst the best materials for substitution
In this chapter we shall detail these various steps

25
4.1 Material Information Attached to a Case
4.1.1 Justifications in the retrieved case
In the see-saw cme Cor instance, various pieces of information are provided
regarding the material it is made of.

See-saw in a playground
Material: wood parallel to grain
Inherited specifications:
-1- mode of loading: bending of rods and t u b a
-2- normal load: support a weight of at least 1OU kg
B e h a v i o r a l justifications:
-1- bending resistance:
mechanical reason - high (or better)
to avoid the see-saw t o bend under normal load
-2- torsion resistance:
mechanical reason - medium (or better)
to avoid t,he see-saw t o bsvist under normal load
-3- fracture resistance:
mechanical and safety r e s o n -high (or better)
to avoid the see-saw to break
under normal load
h n c t ional justifications:

aesthetic reason -
-1- UV radiation resistance: at least good
to avoid color fading

-
-2- t,emperature of use:
safety reason
very cold to yery hot
t,o avoid painful skin contact

The inhxrided specifications are deduced from the general specifications given
by the designer. In the example shown in Section 1.3 concerning the see-saw the
description of the artifact mentions that a beam, hinged at its center, should
Yupport, the weight of two people sitting on both extremit,ies. Knowing t,his the
mode of loading is looked up in t h e table of modes of loading. Such a table can
be found in [Ashby! 19911
There are two types of justifications used in the system: behavioral and
functional. A reason is attached t o each justification. nere only three types of
reason are mentioned: mechanical, safety and axsthetic reasons. A degree ol
importance can also be added t,o t,he justifications that would convey the extent
f o which the justification must be t d e n into account in determining the right
rnatcrials class. For instance, one may consider aesthetic reasons less impor-
tant and thercfore focus first on satisfying mechanical and safety constraints.
Aesthetic reasons would become secondary. The introduction of a degree of
importance would lead to a ranking ofjustifications and then lead fo enhancing
the choice between classes of materials.
The beharioraf jrasdificotiorrs constitute the intrinsic reasons that led to the
rriatcrial choice. They relate t o the function of the artifact itself and thus always
hold. A behavioral characteristic of a see-saw found on a playground is to

26
support the weight of two people sit,ting at Loth ends. The mode of loading
of t,liis a r t i f x t pertains to the class of “bending of rods and tubes”. Such
information can be found in [Ashby, 19911 where a table (see Table 2.1) of the
ten modes of loading relative t,o any mechanical design are given. Each mode
of loading delermines t,he relevant mechanical property/properties the material
should possess. In the see-saw case, bending resistance, torsion resistancc and
fracture resistauce are t,he three important properties. Chapter 2 explains how
their Inathemat,ical expressions are exploited.
The values given t o the properties are conveyed by means of orders of magni-
tude that can he given by the designer either direct,lyor through a user interface.
A user interface could help the designer specify the range of weight the see-saw
should support for instance and the qualitative values for the three types of
resistance could t,hen be derived. An example of how a user interface could he
useful in dekrmining fuzzy qriantities is given in Section 4.2.3.
The funciioaal justij5cations take into consideration the environment of the
artifact. Let us say, we are talking about an outdoor location for the see saw.
If the see-saw is intended to he used outside in very cold weather, one wants to
avoid metal because of possible skin contact. The other functional justificatio~i
relates to an aest,het,icpoint of view. One doesn’t want the color of the see-saw
to fade t,oo quickly when exposed t o the sun’s radiation. These two types of
juslification are directly specified by the designer.

4.1.2 Inference of justifications for the adapted case

In water faucet: Figure 4.1, the behavioral properties previously found for the
seesaw in t,he play ground hold although their values need t o he adapted. The
modo of loading remains identical to the see-saw’s mode of loading, as well as
the three iinportant mechanic.al properties. However, the forces on the see-
saw niechanism are much lower. The designer recognizes this and inputs the
following to the system:

bending resistance: medium (or better)

torsion resistance: medium (or better)
fracturc resistance: low (or better)

Orders of magnitude are used here rather than actual values This facility
allows designers to work with incomplete or inexact information about an evolu-
ing design concept. They usually don’t have a precise knowledge of the value a
property must get but know roughly the suited range of value. Thesc quanti-
lies can easily be represented as fuzzy intervals [Dubois and Prade, 19881. We
can divide the whole range of possible values in five categories: very low, lorn.
medium. high and very high (see Section 4.2 for a more detailed discussion).
Fnnct,ionaljustifications can also be modified. In case of a water faucet, resis-
tance to ultra-violet radiation is not required, and t,emperatures below freezing

27
are unlikely t o be encountered. Therefore, t,he corresponding justifications at-
tached to the retrieved case can hc discarded. In addition, one may require the
artifact to be resistant. to salt corrosion if. for instance, the faucet is going to
he placed in a marine environment.

4.2 Fuzzy Orders of Magnitude

4.2.1 Definitions
Referring to aspecific value for amaterial property can be performed in diffcrent
ways.

h precise value can be given for the material properties. For Example
the statement: “the material density is 5Mg/rn3”. In this statement the
density is precisely known. Houever, sometimes one doesn’t have the
knowledge t o specify such a precise information. In that Case it is more
realistic t,o provide a range of possible values.

e The statement becomes then i m p w i s e : ‘;The material density lies between

4.5Mg/m3 and 5.5A.fg/rn3”. Now one is given a range of value where thc
honndaries are precise. This allows to find materials with roughly the same
property. For instance, materials with a density ranging from 4.5Mg/rn3
to 5.5Mg/m3 would be retrieved. but a material with a slightly greater
(or smaller) denvity (e.g.! 5.6My/m3) would not even be considered. In
order t,o avoid this drastic discontinuity, crisp boundaries may be changed
into imprecise ones.

The range of values then becomes B fuzzy interval, i.e., an interval with
imprecise boundaries, whose definition is given in Section 3.1.5.

To facilitate the retrieval of materials we partition the set of possible val-

ues for each property in several intervals each referring to a specific order of
magnitude. W e have defined five different orders of magnitude that apply to
all properties hut the o n e concerning resisbance to corrosion: v e r y lorn. lorn,
medium. hiyh, and w r y high. The choice of fiye different orders of magnitude
stems from t,he way materials selection charts are presented (see appendix A).
They feature grids with five columns and five rows. This feature has heen re-
tained.
‘I‘he scales used to measure t,he various propcrties are not ident,ical. The five
orders of magnitude thus need to be adapted for each of them. For instancc a
low density has nothing in common with a low shength. Section 1.2.2 explains
the process to define the fuzzy orders of magnitude for each property given t h a t
t,heir corresponding crisp thresholds are known.

28
4.2.2 Partitioning a set of values
The scales used in Ashby’s material selection charts are logarithmic. but this
does not really pose a problem when one wants to define a non-fuzzy partit,ion
over a universe OC possible values. Figure 4.2 shows the characteristic functions
of the five orders of magnitude for the set of possible material densities in Ihe
case of non-fnzzy orders of magnilude on a logarilhmic scale.

Charact,eristic function: p

very very
high
Densit.y
.I .3 1 3 10 30

figure 4.2: Example of non-fumy orders of magnitnde,

Although the materials densities range from 0.1 to 30,tfg/nr3 the ends are
cxt.ended to infinity. The lower (resp. upper) bound of interval very-low (resp.
very-high) is --x (resp. +m). One has the general property that any value
only pertains to one interval at a time:

PA(.) =1 * JLB(Z) = O.V/R # A E 8

0 is the set of possible values, 8 the set of the five orders of magnitude. p~ is
the Characteristic function of the set described by order of magnitude A .
One intuitive way to gct to a fumy partit,ioning of a domain from a non-
fumy one is to choose supports and cores boundaries of fuzzy subsets slightly
greater and lower than the thresholds taken for the non-fuzzy partition. In
order to derive these two new thresholds from the crisp one, one may apply a
mult,iplicative coefficient. A reasonable coefficient to find the fuzzy boundaries
was selected at 20% above or below the crisp threshold, see Figure 4.3. Rote
that the scale shown is linear.
In the crisp case the upper hound of Lhe set of values called high is 10. In a
fuzzy setting t.his t,ranvforms to tx.0 thresholds. The core’s upper bound becomes
8 (10 - .2 x 10) and the support’s upper bound becomes 12 ( l o + .2 x 10). The
same coniputat,ion applies for the lower bounds.

29
 high

( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3

Figure 4.3: Example of fuzzy orders of magnitude.

One should be careful in choosing Ihe multiplicative coefficient to obtain the

fuzzy boundaries. If it becomes too large this may lead to fumy intervals where
the support’s upper bound of fuzzy set n is greater than the support’s lower
+
hound of fuzzy set R 2, see Figure 4.4. This leads to fuzzy sets wit.11 no core.

Figure 4.4: Example of wrong fuzzy partition.

Matching this fuzzy partition on a logarithmic scale leads to noli-trapezoid

fuzzy sets, see Figure 4.5
The general property of such a fuzzy partition ensures that:

With a crisp partition one has the relation p ~ ( z>) U, (i.e., the value z is
A ) for only one order of magnitude A. Thus one is able to state Lhat “1: is A”
or ‘‘z is not. A ” . On thc other hand, the advantage of having a fuzzy partition
over a crisp partition is that it allows to determine that a value z is more A
t,han B , and also t,o quantify to what extent x is A or z is more A than B

~ “ ~ ( ~ ) > ~ B ( z ) , ~ : E R : is
A ,more E B
B E A~ ~than

30
Charperistic function: r

very
high
Density
t
1 3 10

Figure 4.5: Example of fuzzy orders of magnitude on a logarithmic scale

p,,(r) is interpreted as the degree to which the value 2: is A, and pa(2:)- p ~ ( z )

as the degree t o which z is more A than B. Both pa(.) and pa(.) - ps(r)
belong to [0,1]. p a ( t ) = 0 means that z is not at, all A . p a ( z ) = 1 means that
s is fully A. p n ( z ) E ( 0 , l ) means that I is .4 t o some extent.
Fuzzy orders of magnitude can easily be combined. For instance, the com-
pound order of magnitude found in Section 4.1.2 a t feast medium refers t o the
values that are considered as medium or above medium. The compound luzzy
order of magnitude would look like on Figure 4.6.

4 Pat-kart-medium

Figure 4.6: Fuzzy compound orders of magnitude.

This can be stated as:

where .4is a fuzzy order of magnitude.

In this section we have been considering fuzzy orders of magnitudes on a
twiAimensional representation. Applied on materials selection charts the rep-
resentation hecomes threedimensional as shown on Figure 4.7.

31
 /
Figure 4.7: 'Three-dimensional representation of fuzzy orders of magnitude.

4.2.3 An interface for acquiring new orders of magnitude

A iiser interface is no1 critical to this project but could certainly help better
specifying ranges or values looked for about material properties. This aspecl is
not actually implemented but in this section insights are given about how t o
define such an interface and in which way it ma? be useful.
'The issue of acquiring vague knowledge reprsented by means of fuzzy scts
has already been taken up: see [Zemankova, 19891 in t h e d a t a base setting and
[Koning, 19901 for decision systems.
The orders of magnitude defined above are somewhat rigid. In a numbcr
of cases this way of splitting a set of possible values into five fuzzy intervals
may be too rough whereas sometimes it may lead to over-specification. The
purpose of the interface is to let the user choose hisfher proper mode to define
thc order of magnitude hefshe really needs. For instance, if some materials
classes are concentrated on a tiny area of the scale measuring a property, then
it is wise to split this area in more int,ervals than the rest of the scale. Orders of
magnitude lou' and medium shown on Figure 4.5 cover a rather small space of
valucs (compared to high). This discriminates among materials more efficiently
if a lot of them are gathered in that same area.
Evjdently, sometimes i t is more relevant t o deal wit,h at most three different
orders of magnitude when referring to a certain scale, sometimes at lcast t,en
different orders of magnitude could be necessary.

32
 very
very low low medium high high

Figure 4.8: User defined orders of magnitude

A simple algorithm t,o define t,he various orders of magnitude could be:

1. Give the sequence of names of the desired orders of magnitude

2. Givc the two houndaries of the set of possible

3. Give the boundaries of each fuzzy orders of magnitude.

This last step could be performed fairly simply by answering questions like:

Abooe whrch value u muterial mould be considered as having definitely

a h g h stifiess?

h d e r which d u e a material .wou.ld be considered as nol hauiny a

high. stiflness at all?

The answer to these two questions, for instance, would provide t h e lower
bound of the core and the support respectively for the order of magnitude high
attached to the materials property stiffness. These two questions are generic
when the t,erms ‘high’ and ‘stiffness‘ are replaced by any order of magnitude
and material property. As a matter of fact these two questions are sufficient to
define all the fuzzy intervals (See Figure 4.3) since:

lorvcr bound (support, (n)) = upper bound (core (n-1))

lower bound (core (n)) = upper bound (support (n-1))

Only the two exlreme intervals are not regular t,rapezoids. The luwer (resp.
upper) hound of the core and the support of the first (resp. lart) int,erval equal
the minimum (resp. m;utimum) possible value.
The other way to perform step 3 of the algorithm is to specify what would
be thc crisp thresholds of the orders of magnitude and let the interface compute
their fuzzy houndaries via a multiplicative coefficient as explain in Section 4.2.2.
That’s what is actually performed by our system.

33
4.3 Combining Matching Degrees for Materi-
als Class Selection
4.3.1 Queries for accessing materials classes
The fuss? sets based representation in the system, support t,he following types
of queries t,o the materials knowledge base:

1. Gnuen a materials class, what es the range of R possible properly?

The purpose of this query is simply t o ret,rieve the data associated with
each material, e.g.: the range of densities associated with the class of
engineering alloys. It is used to guess the intent behind the selection of
some material in a given base case.

2. Gioen a n order of rnagniinde of a property, whai are ihe corresponding

material classes?
For example, one may ark for material classes with a very high streugt,h.
This query can bc used to look for materials that are similar to a given
property. The answer to this type of query is a set, possibly empty, of
material classes with associated matching degree. The matching degree
captures the extent to which the property of the materials class matches
the specified order of magnitude. It is given by:

\.!'here A is t h e order of magnitude and R the property range for the

marerials class IC.
If the property range for the materials class overlaps the c.ore of the fucay
set that represents the order of magnitude then the matching degree equals
1. If t h e property range is outside the support then the matching degree
is 0: otherwise its value belongs to ( O ! 1) (see Figure 4.9)
Iu the answer to the query, the materials classes are ranked according to
their matching degree. h,laterials close to the magnitude sought appear
first. A matching degree of 0 implies the materials class is not suited at
all and thus this class is not part of the answer.

3. Gioen a materials class, what is/are the urder/oniers of magnitude of R

particular property?
For instance, one may want to rctrieve the order of magnitude of thc
fracture toughness for the class of elastomers. This query does not always
give a single answer. Indeed, because of the fuzzy definition of the orders
oC magnitudel the property of a materials class can be of several orders

34
 p7,. )f,,(I<)= 1
property
scale

pa(1i) = ;
*
property
scale

Figure 4.9: Matching degree hetween a material clms I< and the order of rrrag-
nit,ude A of some property.

of magnitude at the same time. Figure 4.10 shows in detail this aspect,
where 4 . B and C are three different orders of magnitude and R is the
property range for the materials class K .

Figure 4.10: Matching degree between a material class I< and the order of
maguilude A of some other property.

Thc answer to this query is a list of orders of magnitude where each ofthem
is ranked according to its computed degree of matching. 'The example
given on Figure 4.1U would lead to t,he answer { ( B , l ) , ( A , $ ) , ( C ,+)}.
4. Gzven a design code: what am the relevant criteria one should take into
cunsideration?
The answer to such a query is a set of criteria that are optimal Cor materials
selection of an artifact whose mode of loading is known. For example, for
a light cylinder with internal pressure the t,hree important criteria are
stiffness of type f , ductile strength of type and brit,tle strenglh of
type y. This type of d a h is sine qua non to determine which materials
selection charts t o use. The answer to this hype of query depends on the
mode of loading of the artifact. It is given by Table 2.1
4.3.2 Combining matching degrees
Once the important criteria that should be taken into considerat,ion have been
found, the system looks for the materials classes that best fit each of t,hem.
For instance, in the example given in Section 4.1.2 three crireria t,urn out to
be important: bending resist,ance, torsion resistance and fracture resist,ance.
In t h a t caSe Ihe system retrieves (1) materials classes that possess at le& a
medinm bending resistance: ( 2 ) materials classes that possess at least a medium
Lorsion resistance and (3) materials classes thal possess at least a low fracture
resistance. A s seen in Section 4.3.1 this gives rise to three lists where materials
c.lasses are ranked according to t,he extent to which they match the property
requirement.
Aggregating these three lists can be performed in various ways. The st,rateg?
should however meet intuitive characteristics. Some of them are dpscribed here
after. See [Dubois and Prade, 19851 for a more general analysis on aggregation
fnnctions.

1. A materials class that oompletely matches all t h e requirements should

get the maximum aggregated matching degree. This statement can be
conveyed as:

q ( K ) = l : ,.. , Z " ( K ) = 1 3 z ( K ) = f(Zl(K),, . . ,.c,,(K)) = I! VI<.

' ere q ( K ) is the matching degree of the materials class I< with the
\%h
requirement, d (an example of requirement could be a very high stiflriess),
z ( K ) is the aggregated matching degree, f is the aggregation function.
2 . The antonym characteristic should also be true. The materials class that
completely mismatches all the requirements should get 0 as the aggregated
matching degree:

zs(1i) = 0: V i E 11.. . n) + z ( K ) = f ( ~ l ( X )... . ,z,,(K)r)l= 0, VK

3. f does not depend upon the class of materials:

4. The aggregation function f should be defined for any possible combination

of matching degrees:

VZI(K),.. . , t , ( K ) E [ O , 11%3 z ( K )
such that z ( K ) = f(rl(K), ....z n ( ( K ) )

36
 5. II‘ at lcast one single matching degree increases then lhe global (aggre-
gated) matching degree should not decrease.

6. f should he continuous:

f(Zl(K), , . . , z j ( K ) : ., ., tn(l<))

The operation nain is a straightforward aggregation function meeting all

t,hese characterist,ics if one considers all the materials properties equally relevant.
On the other hand, one may want to weight the material properties differenlly.
The weight wd assigned to a material property i could be a value bclonging
to [ O , 11 and conveying tu what extent the associated property is relevant, 1
meaning that the property is definitely relevant and 0 that it is not relevant at
all.
Some material propert,ies may be crucial whereas others may have a srnallcr
importance. In this cme f becomes a weighted aggregation function. The
weighted minimum function reads [Dubok and Prade, 19861:

f ( z l ( I i ). . . . ,z n ( K ) , w l : . _ _wn)
, = ,min niax(wi,zi(I<)),where,min uii =0
,=I ...n * = I . . n.

In the example detailed in Section 4.3.3 we assume the set of properties is

homogeneons. the aggregation function used is the operator min.

4.3.3 Example of material selection

Tlie materials of mechanical and structural engineering fall into nine broad
classes, cf. Chapter 2 . Each of t.hese classes is represented on the select,iun charts.
In the example of the see-saw fur the water faucet. three charts are necessary to
find ant the malerials that match the behavioral properties on bending, torsion
and fracture resistance. Table 4.1 summarizes the results drawn from these
t,liree charts.
Chart 1 guides selection for light stiff component. It allows finding that fix
materials fully possess the required bending rcsistance. Engineering alloys, en-
gineering ceramics, porous ceramics, engineering composites and woods all trdve
a1 least a medium bending resistance. These materials get degree 1 in the first
colnmn of ‘lahle 4.1. From the secund chart, that guides for light strong com-
ponents, six classes of materials are retrieved as satisfying the torsion resistance
property. see lhe second column. The class of engineering polymers doesn’t,

37
 E. Alloys
E. Polymers
E. Ceramics
P. Ceramics
E. Composites 1 1 1 1
Woods 1 1 1 1
Elastoniers 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0

Table 4.1: Mat,erials satisfying the three behavioral properties.

completely meet the requirement of a t least a medium torsion resistance; it,s de-
gree (1/3) therefore belongs to (0, l). The third chart guides for light fracture-
resistant c.omponent,s. The degrees found in each column are aggregated via
the operator min. This conveys a n intersection between the classes of materials
found from each chart. T h e classes that best meet the requirements get the
degree 1. Engineering composites and woods are the t,wo preferred classes. 0
means the corresponding class is definitely rejected. One can see that t h e clavv
or engineering alloys is not totally rejected (degree 4 / 5 > 0).
Let us siippose one intends to manufacture the artifact in great number.
One may want to add a property concerning its cost while designing it. From
the chart that guides the selection for cheap stiff components (cf. Section A.4),
it. appears that the two best classes of materials are poroiis ceramics and en-
gineering alloys and t o a lesser extent woods (degree 1/2), If this property is
equally important t,o the three previous on=: the class of woods gets a grade
of 1/2 (mini 1/2,1)) while engineering alloys category gets 4/5 (min{ 1.4/5})
and thns becomes the preferred class of material. If all the properties are not
equally important, one may assign t o them some weight and even some fuzzy
weight conveying their degree of importance. The aggregation operat,ion then
would become a weighted min [Dubois and h a d e , 19881.

38
Chapter 5

Description of the Program

The whole code has been written in Common Lisp [Steel Jr., 1990] on a V A X
station.
T h e program is divided in two parts, One containirrg all the d a t a definitions
that will constitute the knowledge base and the other part contains all the
functions t h a t create and access the knowledge base.

5.1 Data Structures

A nahural way to program our type of application and in particular. to set up
our kind of knowledge base is to rely heavily on object-oriented programming. I
could have used Knowledge Craft, but this choice would not have been in favor
of easy portability since Knowledge Craft is a very large/expensive system that
is not so widespread. I could have used Common Lisp Object SysWrn t h a t
emerges as the standard for object-oriented programming in Common Lisp, hut
again not. every version of Common Lisp integrate this package yet. Therefore,
I chose to work only with structures and defsfructs functions [see Chapter 19
of [Steel J r . , 19901) which is not really penalizing for the application.

5.1.1 Mechanical and engineering properties

Materials properties definitions are stored under a global variable called *pro-
perty-descriptorst that is actually a vector ofstructures of type property-descriptor
The slots for such a structure are:

name: name of the material property (e&, density)

description: a string describing t,he property.

p-symbol: the propert,y symbol (e.g., p )

39
 unit: the appropriate unil for measuring the property (e.g., M g / m ” ) .
thresholds: the crisp thresholds t,hat,lead to dcfine the fuzzy ones? cf. Scc-
tion 4.2.2
’I‘he value this last slot gets is an instance of structure of type thresholds
chat contains the four crisp thresholds t-1, t-2, t - 3 and t-4 t,hat. separates
between the five fuzzy orders of magnitude, plus the two boundaries for the
properly called t-min and t-max. For instance, the property density would gct
the thresholds:
t-min 0.1
t-1 0.3
t-2 1
t-3 3
t-4 10
t-max 30
Once all the materials properties have been defined a special structure called
properties is created with the name of the defined properties as its slot names.
This structure is used to define the materials classes.

5.1.2 Materials classes

The various types of materials classes are represented as a hierarchy of struc-
tures The root of this hierarchy is the structure materials. Under this root I
have defined five structures corresponding to the five general classes of materials
metals, polymers, ceramics and composites. The leaves of this hierarchy are the
subclasses:
engineering alloys that belongs to the class of metals,
s engineering polymerss!polymer foams and elustoners that belong t o the
class of polymers.
engin.eering cemmics and porous ceramics that belong t o the class of ce-
ramics,
engineering composites and moods that belong to the class of composites.
The woods subclass is itself divided into three sub-subclasses wood parnilel
l o grazn, mood perpendicular l o grain and wood products.

The root structure is a generic structure with only one slot that will capture
an instance of the structurc properties where its slot names are the names
of the materials propert,ies defined (see Section 5.1.1). Each of these slots are
instanLiated with a pair (structure range) of values representing t h e lower and
upper bound of that property for the corresponding materials class. Fix exam-
ple, the struclure engineering-polymers will look like:

40
 Engineering Polymers
Density
lower bound: -
upper bound: -
Fracture Toughness
lower bound: -
upper bound: -

A l l tile materials classes are stored under a global variable. This variable
IS called materials-sequence*. It is a vector of the structures defining t h e
various materials classes.

5.1.3 Modes of loading

The information displayed in Table 2.1 are stored in a global variable called
*modes-of -loading* that is actually a structure of nine slots corresponding
t,o the nine different modes of loading. The value attached l o each slot is an
instance of structure loading-mode-properties that has itself three dots:

4 stiffness: the type of stiffness that should be Laken into account given the
mode of loading like E/p, E * / p , etc.

0 ductile strength: the 1.ype of ductile strength like u y l p , u : / p l etc.

a brittle drength: the type of brittle strength, like U ; c / p

"I'he different kinds of stiffness, ductile strength and brittle strength h a w

heen defined as regular properties with generic names like st'fnessl for E / p :
sfifness.9 for Et/,, etc.

5.1.4 Compiled data

The data stored in the global variable *materials-sequence+ are not directly
used by the system. As explained in Scction 3.2.2 they are first compiled into
sequence3 of structures containing four slots:

change-value: a value of t,he property,

8 m-less: list of materials classes whose property range is situated at least

part.ially before "changevalue",

e m-equal: list of materials cl,zsses whwe property range overlaps "change-

value''

41
 m-greater: list of materials classes whose property range is situated at
least partially after “changcvalue”.

Such a structure is called change-point because it refers to a point where

at least one of the lists changes from a previous point,. All the sequences of
change points are stored in the global variable *change-points-sequences+.
This global variable is in fact an instance of t h e structure properties where
each d o t (called after a property name) is bound to the corrcsponding sequence
of change points of that propcrty.

5.2 Program
5.2.1 Data coherence verification and knowledge base ini-
tialization
A lot of information tnay be stored in the d a t a base. Currently we take into
consideration 9 materials classes and 24 properties (see Appendix D ) . For each
property of a materials class two values are provided (the lower and upper
bounds). When these two values are defined one wants t o make sure that the
ripper bound is greater than the lower bound. This type of checking is performed
because inistakes are easy to do when typing in the data.
The second type of coherence checking deals with the dcfinition of the orders
of magnitude. One wants to avoid the situation shown on Figure 4.4. As said in
Section 4.2.2 the boundaries of the core and the support of the fiizzy orders of
magnitude are 20% greater or lower than the crisp bounds. If a and b are two
p
successive crisp thresholds one checks that b - is always greater than a + $
so that the interval [a + g, k]
t - representing the core of the fuzzy order of
magnirude is non empty (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1: Coherence checking on fuzzy orders of magnitude

Initializing the data base ronsists in filling thc structure which contains the
lists of change points sequences (Le., *change-points-sequences+), onc per
material property. In the beginning the sequences are empty vcctors. For each

42
lower bound or upper bound of a property an instance of the change-point
structure is rreated with this value as the change point value. T h e slot m-equal
is hound to a list containing the material the value refers to. Once all the
change point,s have been generated the sequence is sorted in increasing order of
thc \ d u e ? then Ihe slots m-less, m-equal and m-greater are updated according
t,o the malerials preceding, overlapping or following the change point value. Two
change-point structures are added at bot,h ends of each sequence. The first
one gets only its slot la-greater updated and the last one only its slot m-less.
If two different change points appear t o have the same change-point value in a
scquence than they arc merged into one.

5.2.2 Querying the data base

'The different types of queries are given in Section 4.3.1.
The first type of query is coded in a straightforward way. The two boundaries
are looked up in the global variable *materials-sequence+.
The answer to the second type of query is built from three partial solutions:
(1) the list of materials that overlap the core of the order of magnitude, (2) the
list, of materials whose property range begins between the core's upper bound
or the order of magnitude and its support's upper-bound, and (3) the list of
materials whose propert,y range ends between the support's lower bound ol the
order of magnitude and the corc's lower hound. These three lists are derived
form the sequence of change points for t h e property one is interested in. More
specifically, they are derived from the change points whose values are between
t h e lower and upper bound of the support of the order of magnitude. These
change points are easy to locate since they are sorted in increasing order of their
values.
A matching degree is attached t,o each material. In the first caSe (in the first
l i d ) the matching degree is always 1. In the second chse it is calculated via the
formula where ia is the value of the core's upper bound, b the value of the
support's upper hound and u the lower bound of the property range (the value
of t,he corresponding change point). In the third case the degree of matching
is calculated via the same formnla where a is the support's lower bound, b the
core's upper-bound and v the upper bound of the property range. The three lists
are merged into one that is sorted according to bhe matching degree attached
to each material.
'The answer to t,he third type of query is a list of orders of magnitude where
Lhe attached matching degrees have been calculated in exactly the same way as
explained ahovc.

43
Chapter 6

Conclusion

The approach presented here lies on the concept of materials sclection charts
created by Ashby [Ashby, 19911. AII implementation of these charts has been
suggested as well as a way t o exploit them via queries based on fuzzy orders of
magnit.ude. This work has led to the development ofan autonomous system that
can be hooked up t o more general systems. The initial purpose of this syslem
was to be implemented in bhe framework of the casebased design project CADET
[Sycara et al., 19921.
Casebased design stems from the general theme of case-based problem solv-
ing whose philosophy is l o make use of pas1 experiences in solving new prohlems,
exploiting its memories instead of relying solely on a base of proredures or rules.
I n other words, a casebased systcm is not only an expert or multi-expert system
but also a system that takes into account similar cases already encount,ered.
The CADETsystem has been conceived for the field of mechanical design, its
intent is to play the role of a designer’s assistant by retrieving and re-using pre-
vious succasful designs while avoiding previous failures such as poor material8
or high cost.
The process of case-based design consists of several steps that are not ner-
essarily strictly applied in t,he order given here; some may overlap.
1. Development of u Functional Description. At the simplest level, the de-
sired artifact. c a l ~be viewed as a black box which takes cert,ain inputs and
produces desired outputs. The functiori of the black box is described by
qualitalive relations explainiug how the inputs and outputs are related.
‘The system’s job is to realize an artifact which will convert the inputs into
the desired outputs.
2. Retrieval of Cases. A set of design cases (or case parts) bearing similarity
l o a given collection of features are accessed and retrieved. Retrieval is
performed using not only the existing features of t.he input specification
and also behavior description.

44
 3. Dcl;elopment of a Synthesis Strategy. A synthesk strategy is a description
of how the various c a e s and case pieces will fit together to yield a working
design.
4. Physzcal Synthesis. Realization of the synthesis strategy at a physical
Icvcl. This is a difficult problem since undesirable inleractions among case
parts may occur. In addition, since it k very rare to retricve cases that
m a d l y match the design specifications, cases and case pieces must he
physically modified before actual synthesis.

5. Verification. Advcrse interactions could lead t o nou-conformance of the

desigo to the desired specifications. This is verified through quantitative
and q u a l i t h v e simulation. If the simulation is correct, and if all the
const,raints are satisfied! then the dmign is successful. If not, repair (next
step) is attempted.
6 . Debugging. Debugging involves a process of asking relevant questions and
modifying them based on causal explanation of the bug.

So far. CADET implements the first four steps indicated above. Verification
and debugging is currently left to the human designer.
Once a cave has been retrieved, it, may need some adaptation to become part
of the whole artifact. This adaptat,iou phase can be seen as twofold. First, the
case itself may need to be modified to suit the features of the output specifica-
tions. ‘lhis s k p only brings into p h y the intrinsic characteristics of the case.
Secondly, due to the interact,ions between the (possibly already modified) case
and its new environment, other adaptations may be needed. This second step
intervenes at a lower level of abstraction right before the actual synthesis.
The tcrm adaptation has a broad meaning. In this report we have focused on
material adaptation and more precisely on the one that first takes place. Mate-
rial modification due t o interaction with ot,her devices has not been considered
here.
CADET’S architecture [Sycara et al., 19911 is centered around a design black-
board. This blackboard is used to maintain information about the various de-
sign alternatives that are being actually considered at any given time. The
materials selection system is consulted during case selection to check material
requirements and during case adaptation.

45
Acknowledgements

1 wish to acknowledge:

Katia Sycara and D. Kavinchandra who have contributed many ideas and
substantial time to the creation of the material selection system prescnt,ed
here.

Mark Fox who accepted me as Visiting Scientist at the Center for Inte-
grated Manufacturing Decision Systems.

Michael hshby who authorized the reproduction of his charts

46
Appendix A

Material Selection Charts

This appendix gives all the material selection charts we are using in our system.
The figures and text presented below are taken from [Ashby, 19911.

A.l Materials Selection Chart for Light Stiff

Components
This chart is shown on Figure 2.1. Its three guide lines are given on Table 2.1:

1. b,'/p = C: criterion for axial tension of t i e s

2 . E i / p = C: criterion for bending, torsion, or buckling of beams, shack

and c.oliirnns;

3. E f j p = C: criterion for bending of plates

h,lat,erials offering t,he greatest stiffness-to-weight, ratio lie towards t,he upper
left corner.

A.2 Materials Selection Chart for Light Strong

Components
On Figure h.1 the property of strength, whose symbol is u v , is plotted against
density. Let us n0t.e t h a t for metals and polymers the strength referred t o is
called yield strength, Cor ceramics and glass- it is called compressive strength.
for e l a t o m e r s it is called t,ensile tear strength, and for composita tensile failure:.
'Ihe three guide lines are given by:

1. u Y / p = C: criterion for plastic failure of ties,

47
 1
2. uy’J p = C : criterion for plastic bending, torsion of beams and shafts,

1
3. u$ J p = C: criterion for plastic bending of plates

Figure A . l : Material selection chart for light strong components (courtesy).

Materials offering the greatest strength-to-weight ratio lie towards the upper
left comer.

48
A.3 Materials Selection Chart for Light Fkacture-
Resistant Components
O n Figure A.2 the property of fracture toughness, whose symbol is lirc. is
plotkd against density. The three guide lines are given by:

1. I i r C l p = C: criterion for brittle failure of ties,

2 . Iir+Jp = C : criterion for brittle failure of beams and shafts,

I
3. Ii;c/p= C: critcrion for brittle failure of plate8
Materials offering the greatest, t.oughness-to-weight ratio lie towards the up-
per left corner.

A.4 Materials Selection Chart for Cheap, Stiff

Components
On Figure A.3 the property of young’s modulus is plot,ted against, relative cost.
This lat,ter property, whose symbol is CR,is calculated by:
cost per unit weight of the material
Cn =
cost per unit weight of mild steel
The three guide lines are given by:

1. E/Cjrp = C: criterion for axial tension of ties,

2. Ef/C,p = C: criterion for bending, torsion or buckling of beams, shafts

and columns,
3. E k l C ~ =
p C: criterion for bending of plates
Mat,erials offering the greatest stiffness per unit cost lie towards the upper
left corner.

A.5 Materials Selection Chart for Cheap, Strong

Components
On Figure A . 4 the property of strength is plotted against relative cost. See the
different meanings of strength in Section A.2.
The three guide lines arc given by:

1. u y / C ~ =
p C : criterion for axial tension of ties,

49
 2. o;/C,p = C: criterion for bending, torsion or buckling of beams: shafts
and columns,

3. u i / C n p = C: criteriou for bending OC plates,

Matcrials offering the greatest strength per unit cost lie towards thc upper
lcft corner.

A.6 Materials Selection Chart for Components

Resistant to Corrosion
The chart given on Figure A.5 indicates where environmental problems may
exist. I1 shows the response of each group of materials to prolongcd exposure,
undcr normal working loads? to six environments: clean but aerated water, salt
materl acids alkalis, organic solvents and direct sunlight.
Materials which lie in the outer A-zone have excellent resistance. 'Chose
in the inner D-zone are rapidly attacked. The radius can be seen ay a scale
conveying the time of exposure to the environment before corrosion. The outer
circle represents time 0 and the cent,er represents an infinke time.

50
Figure 11.2: Material selection chart for light fracture-resistant components
(courtesy).

51
Figure A.3: Material selection chart for cheap, stiff components (courtesy).

52
 RELATIVE COST PER UNIT VOLUME C,p (Mg/rn’)

Figure A.4: Material selection chart for cheap, strong components (courtesy)

53
Figure A.5: Material selection chart for components resistant to corrosion (cour-
tesy).

54
Appendix B

Materials Classes and

Properties

This appendix summarizes the materials classes and the mechanical and en-
gincering properties that arc currently exploited by the syst,em (taken from
[Ashby. 19911).

B.l Material Classes

Enginerring Allows : The met,als and alloys of engineering.

Engineering Polymers ; The thermoplastics and thermosets of engineering.

Engineering C e r a m i c s : Fine ceramics capable of load-bearing applicalions.

Engineering Composites : T h e composites of engineering pract,ice

Porous C e r a m i c s : Traditional ceramics cements, rocks and minerals.

Glasses ~ Silicatc glass and silica itself.

W o o d s : Separate envelope3 dexribe p r o p d i e s parallel to t,he grain arid nor-

mal to it, and wood products.

E l a s t o m e r s : Natural and artificial rubbers.

P o l y m e r Foams : Foamed polymers of engineering.

55
B.2 Material Properties
Derivity P
Young’s Modulus E
Strength “f
Fracture Toughness I~IC
Stiffness E l p , E i l p , E: J p
Ductile Strength “ J l P ! “:/P, u:/P
Brittle Strengt,h I i r c l p , x , ~ c l p >ii,&Jp
Relative Cost CR
Resistance Lo Aerated Water
Resistance to Salt, Water
Resistance to Strong Acids
Resistance to Strong Alkalis
Resistance to Organic Solvent
Resistance to U-V Radiation

56
Bibliography

[Ashby, 1969al Ashby, M. F. (198%). Materials selection in mechanical design.

Maierials Science and Technology, 5:517-525.
[Ashby. 1989hI Ashby, ?d.F. (l989h). On the engineering properties of materi-
als. A c t a metallerngica, 37(5):1273-1293.
[Ashby. 19911 Ashby, M. F. (1991). Materials selection charts. Technical rc-
port, Cambridge University Engineering Department, Trumpington street,
Cambridge CB2 l P Z , England. Version 4.0.
[Ashby and Jones, 19801 Ashby, M . F . and Jones, D. R. H. (1980). Engineering
Materials: A n introduction t o iheir Properties and Applications, volume 34 of
Inlernational Series o n ,I.faieriuls Science and Technology. Pergamon Press.
New York.
[Duhois and Prade, I9851 Dubois, D. and Prade, H. (1985). A review of fuzzy
set aggregation connectives. Infonnataon. Sciences, 36:85-121

[Dubois arid h a d e , 19861 Dubois, D. and Prade, H. (1986). Weighted minimum

and niaximum in fuzzy set theory. Information Sciences: 39:205-210.
[Dnbois and Prade, 19881 Duhois, D. and Prade, H. (1988). Possibilily Theory:
A n dpp~oaclri o Compuierized Processing oJ Uncertainty. Plenum Press, Kew
Lbrk.
[Kaning, 19901 Koning: J.-L. (1990). A user interface for acquiring fuzzy deci-
sion lables. In International Conference o n Human Machine Interaction an.d
Ariificial Intelligence in Aeronauiics and Space, pages 225-239. Toulonse,
France. Teknea.
[Steel Jr., 1990] Steel Jr., G. L. (1990). C o m m o n Lisp, The Longuaye. Digital
Press. second edition.

[Sycara et al.: 19921 Sycara, K. P., Navinchandra, D . , Guttal, R... Koning, J.-L..
arid Karaqimhan, S. (1992). Cadet: A case-based synthesis tool for engineering
design. Iniernaidonal Journal of E'xppert Systems, 4(2):157-188.
[Sycara ct al.: 1991) Sycara, K. P., Navinchandra, 0..and Yarasimhao. S.
(1991). A transformational approach to case based synthesis. A I EDAIII.
5 ~ ) .
[Ladeh! I S G ] Zadeh, L. (1965). Fuzzy sets. fnformalion and C o n t d , 8:338-
353.
[Z,eInankow: 1989) Zemankwa, M . (1989). Filip: A fuzzy intelligent informa-
tion syst,em with learning capabilities. Information System, 14(6):473-436.

58