Abstract
Engineering design usually starts with a customer need, and then proceeds through several stages: conceptual design, functional design, layout design, structural design and production design. As design proceeds, design information about the artifact becomes concrete and quantified gradually. In the last several decades, computer simulation technologies including FEM have been developed for the later design stages at which correct and concrete numerical information is available. On the other hand, computer support for the earlier design stages is not sufficient due to difficulties in handling ambiguous and qualitative design information. However, it is well known that design at the early stages has a great influence on the final design solution, and designers need design support tools for upstream design. Therefore, we have established a research society for 1D-CAE, which is a general term for idea, methodology and tools applicable for upstream design support, and discuss the concept and definition of 1D-CAE. This paper reports our discussion about 1D-CAE.
