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Development of efficient DIgital product FAMily design platform to increase cost efficiency - DIFAM

Reference number
Coordinator GKN Aerospace Sweden AB
Funding from Vinnova SEK 4 070 250
Project duration October 2019 - September 2023
Status Completed
Venture National Aeronautical Research Program 7
Call Research project in aviation technology - spring 2019

Important results from the project

DIFAM has focused on developing methods for reusing data and experience from existing products, as well as enabling the construction and evaluation of alternative concepts in a product family. In DIFAM tools have been developed for modular generation of CAD geometries, visualization and analysis of multidisciplinary results for design space exploration. Alongside these tools, supporting methods have been developed to enable the use of data and experience from existing products. Results have been presented in three conference articles and one journal article.

Expected long term effects

The project has resulted in methodological support for comparisons of different design alternatives in terms of different requirements and needs, e.g. cost, weight, material, manufacturing method. The comparison can partly be made between different future concepts but also relatively earlier products that are already in production, this contribute with experience and data to better assess any risks linked to a new design. The project contributes to developing the digital experiment laboratory at Chalmers, SED Lab, to develop and test new methods in an industrial environment.

Approach and implementation

The Design Research Methodology (Blessing, 2009) was applied in this project and divided the research into four sections: Research clarification, Current situation description study, a prescriptive study that proposes and formulates alternative solutions, and then a second descriptive study. Empirical data on the industrial needs has been collected through interviews and workshops with the project partners. "As-is" and "To be" situations were defined with the industrial partners, and appropriate methods were developed in the digital experimental laboratory at Chalmers.

External links

The project description has been provided by the project members themselves and the text has not been looked at by our editors.

Last updated 9 November 2023

Reference number 2019-02756