A Systems Approach to Biomimetic Design

Abstract

This thesis investigates utilizing a model-based systems engineering tool for knowledge reuse and traceability. The increased complexity of products and their systems requires designers to have the ability to trace their decisions and verify that it is in line with the engineering design requirements to successfully integrate the new technologies. Research shows that traditional methods do not enable the designer to trace back to the requirements, review the work of similar projects, and utilize the knowledge previously developed in the community. To better develop a support tool for designers who work with new technologies, insights regarding how to design for knowledge reuse and traceable design decisions are needed. The objective of this thesis therefore is to create a modeling package that can support designers in their knowledge reuse process and tracing of requirements. A modeling package was designed towards current practice for storing and accessing project data in the MBSE language SysML by conducting a case study review and interviewing systems engineers. The package concept created a format for storing and accessing technological information that is in line with standard professional practice. The case studies were used to identify the types of designs most suitable for utilizing the language and contribute to the example knowledge repository. Expert users, who use SysML in their everyday work, were interviewed on their work practices to help understand what information tends towards reuse, the critical steps of their knowledge reuse and traceability processes, and problem areas that occur when tracing and reusing information. The engineers were observed conducting tasks that fall in both the traceability and xi reusability categories to create workflows of the critical steps and identify where the problem areas occur in the workflows. The original package was then revised to minimize the potential issues identified in the reuse and traceability processes. Factors such as in system dependencies, human memory, and complexity of the system design storage were key to understanding how to address the issues that arose. The study concludes that the package has the potential to create a technical repository for knowledge reuse, support forwards and backward traceability, and create an extendable mapping profile to facilitate design across the biological and technological domains which supports the implementation of digital thread technology.