Fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering Design Process for students’ Capstone Projects
Cyrus Raoufi, Ph.D., P.Eng.
British Columbia Institute of Technology
February 2024
Preface
This textbook is intended to introduce the fundamentals of Mechanical Engineering Design Process that are covered and required in a typical students’ capstone design projects at introductory level. The main intention was to cover the essential subjects in a very abstract format as offed in a typical capstone design course in a two-year engineering technology diploma program. The emphasis is the view of junior mechanical designers who do not have any background and experience in this area and need a reference to manage their capstone project and organize their corresponding reports. Thus, this text was geared toward this focus. We acknowledge that covering all subjects in the engineering design process, problem solving techniques, and project management is well beyond the scope of this text.
Chapter 1 of this textbook introduces the design process, type of design projects, product life cycle, engineering design education, and design organization.
Chapter 2 includes some problem-solving tools to identify the problem, finding the cause of the problem, and finding the solution to the problem. Besides, the fundamentals of project management will be presented at introductory level. It also presents two recommended formats used for the proposal and final project reports.
Chapter 3 of this textbook introduces a few tools to identify the customer needs, gather required information, Quality Function Deployment QFD, and develop a set of product specifications.
Chapter 4 of this textbook introduces both Functional Decomposition Diagram and morphology used to generate the design concepts. Besides, the process of concept generation and selection is covered. Finally, the system level design is discussed and some geometric layouts generated by 2nd year students here at BCIT are illustrated.
About the Author
Dr. Cyrus Raoufi is a faculty member in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. Cyrus obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and M.Sc. at the Queen’s University both in Mechanical Engineering. He is a registered Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) with more than 20 years professional industrial experience in mechanical engineering working as a Mechanical Engineer, Project Manager, Machine/Product Designer, and Tool Engineer. His teaching and research interests are in CAD/CAE, automation/robotics, design for manufacturing, and system modeling/simulation. Dr. Raoufi is a member of the Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia (EGBC).
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank to the faculty and staff of the Mechanical Engineering Department in the British Columbia Institute of Technology who provide me the environment to work and grow. This work was funded by a grant provided by BCIT’s Open Education Working Group, I appreciate the support. I would also like to thank my colleague Mr. Ken Wong who kindly provide me some of his lecture notes used in Chapter 1.
