Abstract

Although a lot of recent literature states that the material and process selection should be conducted as a systematic decision process, VDI-Guideline 2223 still states that the designer should select materials and manufacturing processes based on his knowledge. But a survey has shown that designers have little knowledge about materials and manufacturing processes. Additionally one of the main aims of the engineering design science is to reduce the influence of the designer’s knowledge and experience on the designed product. Therefore a systematic material, process and embodiment type selection process with some helpful tools is proposed here. The process consists of the process steps “Identify Embodiment Determining Requirements”, “Identify Working Surface Pairs”, “Working Surface Synthesis”, “Channel and Support Structure Synthesis”, “Cross Section Synthesis”, “Manufacturing Process Chain Synthesis”, “Material Synthesis” as well as “Evaluation and Selection”. The presentation in this chronological order is meant as a guideline to the designer. He should adapt the process to his needs by rearranging the process steps or skipping some them. In the paper assisting tools and methods are described for most of the process steps. A graphical requirements “list” to document local requirements, for example, will help to increase the use of hybrid materials. Due to this systematic and combined approach for synthesizing and selecting materials, manufacturing processes and embodiment types, the embodiment of the product will be less dependent on the knowledge of the designer.