Product Design

Analysis

Analysis
Everyday we use thousands of different
products, from telephones to bikes and drinks
cans to washing machines. But have you ever
thought about how they work or the way they are
made?
Every product is designed in a particular way product analysis enables us to understand the
important materials, processing, economic
and aesthetic decisions which are required
before any product can be manufactured. An
understanding of these decisions can help us in
designing and making for ourselves.

1st
The first task in product analysis is to become
familiar with the product! What does it do? How
does it do it? What does it look like? All these
questions, and more, need to be asked before a
product can be analysed. As well as considering
the obvious mechanical (and possibly electrical)
requirements, it is also important to consider the
ergonomics, how the design has been made
user-friendly and any marketing issues - these
all have an impact on the later design decisions.

Example of a Bike
What is the function of a bicycle?
How does the function depend on the type of
bike (e.g. racing, or about-town, or child's bike)?
How is it made to be easily maintained?
What should it cost?
What should it look like (colours etc.)?
How has it been made comfortable to ride?
How do the mechanical bits work and interact?

System

There are 2 main types of

product - those that only have
one component (e.g. a
spatula) and those that have
lots of components (e.g. a
bike). Products with lots of
components we call systems.
But, to understand why various
materials and processes are
used, we usually need to 'pull it
apart' and think about each
component as well. We can
now analyse the function in
more detail and draft a
design specification.

Product

Components

Bike

Frame, wheels,
pedals, forks, etc.

Drill

case, chuck, drill bit,

motor, etc.

Design questions
What are the requirements on each part
(electrical, mechanical, aesthetic, ergonomic,
etc)?
What is the function of each component, and
how do they work?
What is each part made of and why?
How many of each part are going to be made?
What manufacturing methods were used to
make each part and why ?
Are there alternative materials or designs in use
and can you propose improvements?

For a drinks container, a design specification

would look something like:
provide a leak free environment for storing liquid
comply with food standards and protect the liquid
from health hazards
for fizzy drinks, withstand internal pressurisation
and prevent escape of bubbles
provide an aesthetically pleasing view or image
of the product
if possible create a brand identity
be easy to open
be easy to store and transport
be cheap to produce for volumes of 10,000+

Choosing the right materials

Given the specification

of the requirements on
each part, we can
identify the material
properties which will
be important - for
example:

Requirement

Material Property

must conduct electricity

electrical conductivity

cannot be too expensive

cost per kg

must support loads without

breaking

strength .

Choosing the right materials

One way of selecting the best materials
would be to look up values for the
important properties in tables. But this is
time-consuming, and a designer may miss
materials which they simply forgot to
consider. A better way is to plot 2 material
properties on a graph, so that no materials
are overlooked - this kind of graph is called
a materials selection chart (these are
covered in another part of the tutorial).

Choosing the right process

It is all very well to choose the perfect material, but somehow we have to
make something out of it as well! An important part of understanding a product
is to consider how it was made - in other words what manufacturing processes
were used and why. There are 2 important stages to selecting a suitable
process:

Technical performance: can we make this product with

the material and can we make it well?
Economics: if we can make it, can we make it cheaply
enough?

Choosing the right process

Process selection can be quite an involved
problem - we deal with one way of
approaching it in another part of the
tutorial.
So, now we know why the product is
designed a particular way, why particular
materials are used and why the particular
manufacturing processes have been
chosen.

Product analysis can seem to

follow a fixed pattern:
1. Think about the design from an
ergonomic and functional viewpoint.
2. Decide on the materials to fulfil the
performance requirements.
3. Choose a suitable process that is also
economic.

Final
Whilst this approach will often work, design is really holistic - everything
matters at once - so be careful to always think of the 'bigger picture'. For
example:

Is the product performance driven or cost driven? This

makes a big difference when we choose materials. In a
performance product, like a tennis racquet, cost is one of
the last factors that needs to be considered. In a nonperformance product, like a drinks bottle, cost is of
primary importance - most materials will provide
sufficient performance (e.g. although polymers aren't
strong, they are strong enough).
Although we usually choose the material first, sometimes
it is the shape (and hence process) which is more
limiting. With window frames, for example, we need long
thin shaped sections - only extrusion will do and so only
soft metals or polymers can be used (or wood as it
grows like that!).

three main things to think about

when choosing materials
1. Will they meet the performance
requirements?
2. Will they be easy to process?
3. Do they have the right 'aesthetic'
properties?
We deal with the processing aspects of materials in a different part of the
tutorial. For now it is sufficient to note that experienced designers aim to
make the decisions for materials and processes separately together to get
the best out of selection.
The choice of materials for only aesthetic reasons is not that common, but
it can be important: e.g. for artists. However, the kind of information
needed is difficult to obtain and we won't deal with this issue further here.

Performance
Most products need to satisfy some performance targets,
which we determine by considering the design
specification.e.g. they must be cheap, or stiff, or strong,
or light, or perhaps all of these things...
Each of these performance requirements will influence
which materials we should choose - if our product needs
to be light we wouldn't choose lead and if it was to be
stiff we wouldn't choose rubber!
So what we need is data for lots of material properties
and for lots of materials. This information normally
comes as tables of data and it can be a time-consuming
process to sort through them. And what if we have 2
requirements - e.g. our material must be light and stiff how can we trade-off these 2 needs?

Chart
Here is a materials selection
chart for 2 common
properties: Young's
modulus (which describes
how stiff a material is) and
density
1. metals are the heaviest
materials,
2. foams are the lightest
materials,
3. ceramics are the stiffest
materials
On these charts, materials of
each class (e.g. metals,
polymers) form 'clusters' or
'bubbles' that are marked by
the shaded regions. We can
see immediately that

Chart
But we could have found that out from tables given a bit
of time, although by covering many materials at a
glance, competing materials can be quickly identified.
Where selection charts are really useful is in showing the
trade-off between 2 properties, because the charts plot
combinations of properties. For instance if we want a
light and stiff material we need to choose materials near
the top left corner of the chart - so composites look good.
Note that the chart has logarithmic scales - each division
is a multiple of 10; material properties often cover such
huge ranges that log scales are essential.

Using chart

To find the best materials we need

to use the Young's modulus density chart from amongst the
available charts. The charts can
be annotated to help reveal the
'best' materials, by placing a
suitable selection box to show only
stiff and light materials.
The values of Young's modulus for
polymers are low, so most
polymers are unlikely to be useful
for stiffness-limited designs.
Some metals, ceramics and
woods could be considered - but
composites appear best of all.

Using chart

It is unlikely that only 2

material properties matter, so
what other properties are
important? Let's consider
strength and cost - these
properties are
plotted as another chart.
The strength of ceramics is
only sufficient for loading in
compression - they would not
be strong enough in tension,
including loading in bending.
Woods may not be strong
enough, and composites might
be too expensive.
Metals appear to give good
overall performance

Using chart

Selection charts can also be used

to select between members of a
given class by populating it with
the main materials. For instance,
we can do this for metals in the
stiffness-density chart.
Some metals look very good for
light, stiff components - e.g.
magnesium, aluminium, titanium,
while others are clearly eliminated
- e.g. lead.
Steels have rather a high density,
but are also very stiff. Given their
high strength and relatively low
cost, they are likely to compete
with the other metals.

Conclussion
By considering 2 (or more) charts, the properties needed
to satisfy the main design requirements can be quickly
assessed.
The charts can be used to identify the best classes of
materials, and then to look in more detail within these
classes.
There are many other factors still to be considered,
particularly manufacturing methods. The selection made
from the charts should be left quite broad to keep
enough options open. A good way to approach the
problem is to use the charts to eliminate materials which
will definitely not be good enough, rather than to try and
identify the single best material too soon in the design
process.