Evaluating Complicatedness in Mechanical Design

Plain Talk about Systems Complicatedness

Towards a Theory of Complicatedness: Framework for Complex Systems Analysis and Design

Global, dynamic, and competitive business environment has increased the complexity in product, service, operational processes and human side. Much engineering effort goes into reducing systems complexity. We argue that the real issue is reducing complicatedness. This is an important distinction. Complexity can be a desirable property of systems provided it is architected complexity that reduces...

Mechanical design in arteries.

The most important mechanical property of the artery wall is its non-linear elasticity. Over the last century, this has been well-documented in vessels in many animals, from humans to lobsters. Arteries must be distensible to provide capacitance and pulse-smoothing in the circulation, but they must also be stable to inflation over a range of pressure. These mechanical requirements are met by st...

Mechanical Design in Organisms

In recent years important advances in the physiology and biochemistry of the musculoskeletal system have allowed major contributions to the understanding of function and disease. Unfortunately, many of the people interested in studying organisms at an extremely basic level, as well as those involved in the treatment of disease processes of the skeletal system, frequently fail to grasp the impor...

Function Sharing in Mechanical Design

Function sharing in mechanical design is the simultaneous implementation of several functions with a single structural element. If automobiles were designed without function sharing they would be relatively large, expensive and unreliable. But because elements like the sheetmetal body implement many functions (electrical ground, structural support, aerodynamic faring, weather protection, and ae...