As modern systems continue to increase in size and complexity, they pose significant safety and risk management challenges. System engineers and much of the government research efforts are focused on understanding the attributes and characteristics that emerge from the interactions of components and subsystems. As a result, the objective of...
This work proposes a framework of concept generation and evaluation that takes into consideration the benefit of creativity and innovation in current market trends. By educating engineers in how to increase creativity in concept design and assess it quantitatively, the next generation of designers will be a step ahead of...
A gap exists in the methods used in industry and available in academia that prevents customers and engineers from having a voice when considering engineering risk appetite in the dynamic shaping of early-phase conceptual design trade study outcomes. Current methods used in Collaborative Design Centers either collect risk information after...
While many organizations claim to "put safety first," safety is rarely considered early in the design process when system-level architectural decisions are made. Instead, system design follows an abstraction-to-detail process to first meet functional and then performance requirements. Following this process, safety assurance occurs in the later stages of design...
A number of computational tools now exist to aid in developing conceptual solutions based on a functional description of a design problem. A key limitation of these tools is the way results are organized for presentation to the user. In general, results are an undifferentiated mass of potential solutions. Analysis...
It is desirable for complex engineered systems to perform missions efficiently and economically, even when these missions' complex, variable, long-term operational profiles make it likely for hazards to arise. It is thus important to design these systems to be resilient so that they will actively prevent and recover from hazards...
Modern engineered systems are increasingly integrated into society, decentralized, and interconnected. However, scale and complexity create unique challenges in system design, such as emergent behavior and unintended consequences. This work investigates the structural characteristics of robustness in complex engineered systems by identifying patterns of under-recognized vulnerabilities at various levels of...
Metal organic Frameworks (MOFs) that experience stimuli induced structural transformation could enable a whole new class of materials with remarkable properties. Photoactuating moieties in the structure could effect changes in the pore space or macroscale shape change enabling light driven gas separation and actuators. Here, we present a novel approach...
Most accidents and malfunctions in complex engineered systems are attributed to human error. However, a closer inspection would reveal that such mishaps often emerge as a result of poor design and human- and component-related vulnerabilities acting together. To fully understand and mitigate potential risks, the effects of such interactions between...
This research presents a methodology to identify and analyze human-system interactions, and their potential failure modes using a functional decomposition approach during the early system design stage.
The fundamental research contribution of this work is the development of a framework to identify associations between physical user-product interactions, generic human errors...