Prototyping has been shown important to facilitate learning, inform decisions and to communicate ideas in engineering design. However, it is not evident which methods, tools and materials to use, as prototyping is practised differently across development contexts, and stages. In the early stages of design, different choices in prototyping methods, tools and materials all affect prototyping outcome. This paper is focused on prototyping methods in the context of early stages of design and attempts to highlight identified strengths and limitations of using non-rigid materials for prototyping.

Developing autonomous functions for complex systems leads to high demands on the consideration of dependencies to external actors in the usage phase. In Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), this can be achieved by modelling operational aspects. Operational aspects are model elements and their relationships to each other. In this contribution, modelling of operational aspects with a MBSE-approach will be demonstrated exemplary on a case study related to the development of a yacht with an autonomous docking assistant. Currently modelling operational aspects is not common in the civil sector.

Transportation industries are the centrepoint for some remarkable transformations driven by technology development and innovation. However, we have seen limited advances on methods to address reliability and resilience challenges emerging with increasingly complex systems and environments. This paper presents the outcomes of an European Reliability Research Roadmapping workshop, collating the views of automotive, aerospace and defence industries to identify current reliability challenges and research gaps and to define directions for future research and skills development.

How do employees perceive the impact of incorporating sustainability considerations into their product development practice? In this case study, we observe how these perceptions can be shifted by teaching workshops on how to apply sustainable design methods in practice. We compare the trends for different methods on various dimensions such as creativity, design process time, product marketability etc. Results show an overall shift towards positive perception for all the methods on a majority of factors, indicating a way to ease the adoption of sustainable design into industry practice.

When designing high performance sports equipment for Paralympic athletes, there are many unknowns for the design engineer to consider. The design challenge is an optimisation task per individual athlete. However, modelling this optimisation is difficult due to the many variables. This article presents the design of an experiment for identifying and evaluating various seating positions in Paralympic rowing by using a rowing ergometer with a modified seat. Results indicate that changing seating position has a substantial impact on per-athlete rowing performance.

Design methods are seldom used in engineering design practice. The presented study aims at finding the alternative strategies for situations with a need for methodological support. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten experienced design engineers to identify causes of and strategies for those situations. Three strategy clusters could be identified: generating information, experience and method application. As the individual's and the team's experience compete with the application of methods, they are seen as reasons for a lack of method application.

The belt units of an omnidirectional treadmill need to be connected for a continuous rotational transmission with variating axes angle. Torus gearing is not appropriate due to kinematic reasons, therefore a crown gearing with cone-shaped teeth is proposed. Parameter analysis on a virtual kinematics model show that depending on the cone angle, overlaps occur at different axis angles. Consequently, the shape of the teeth is modified with tip and foot relief and optimized so that no overlapping of the teeth occurs while a large path of contact is provided.

The design of an active seat suspension for a mid-class passenger vehicle based on the given set of requirements is considered a combination of four subsystems; the carrier, the actuator, the spring, and the damper. The design of the former two is considered through the 10 and 16 concepts for each, respectively. Two overall designs are proposed for further development. One based on a dual Scott-Russell mechanism and one based on Sarrus mechanism. The first one is evaluated to have high stiffness, the second to be more cost-effective. The detailed design of the first concept is presented.

The latest advances in the design of vehicles with the adaptive level of automation pose new challenges in the vehicle-driver interaction. Safety requirements underline the need to explore optimal cockpit architectures with regard to driver cognitive and perceptual workload, eyes-off-the-road time and situation awareness. We propose to integrate existing task analysis approaches into system architecture evaluation for the early-stage design optimization. We built the discrete-event simulation tool and applied it within the multi-sensory (sight, sound, touch) cockpit design industrial project.

The increasing market competitiveness and CAE availability require the products to be optimised. This practice is exceedingly present when producing semi-standard parts like structural elements. Several cost calculation methods are developed, bringing up the question - which one to use? In this article, we compared three methods; a welded I-section beam was used as an example. The optimisation was carried out using two objectives (mass and cost) and was submitted to Eurocode boundary conditions. The results have shown that the cost calculation method has a negligible influence on the results.

Behavioural design is a critical means to address challenges surrounding human behaviour. However, practitioners and researcher face difficulties in synthesising relevant perspectives from across fields as behavioural challenges are complex and multi-dimensional. Taking a theory-building approach, this study explore how expert behavioural designers navigate in this complex design space by examining the creative outcome of their current ideation practice. The findings reveal that the designers favour ‘holding’ out of the four identified ideation patterns: holding, shifting, pairing, and mixing.

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) require a high level of interaction between the driver and the system, depending on driving context at a particular moment. Context-aware ADAS evaluation based on vehicle data is the most prominent way to assess the complexity of ADAS interactions. In this study, we conducted interviews with the ADAS development team at Volvo Cars to understand the role of vehicle data in the ADAS development and evaluation. The interviews’ analysis reveals strategies for improvement of current practices for vehicle data-driven ADAS evaluation.

Electric vehicles are playing an increasingly important role in the agricultural sector. The selection of tyres for reducing energy loss due to rolling resistance is an important consideration in determining the viability of these vehicles. To date little is known about rolling resistance of small all-terrain vehicles. In this study a test rig was used to collect rolling resistance data for seven ATV tyres. The study verifies the relationship between normal load and rolling resistance and gives insight into some of the important considerations when selecting tyres for small off road vehicles.

Social media influencers (SMI) are gaining interest and many are studying their influence on the online audience, little is known about the role played by them in offline teams. One such attempt to study the effect of influencers in co-design team is presented in this paper, where individuals who are confident in their abilities drive the team process. Thus, self-efficacy is considered for determining influencer behaviour. Results expose the relationship between self-efficacy and influencer status on the design process, besides briefly highlighting the effects on above-average teams.

A prototype of an innovative split-single two stroke engine is presented. With the aim of increasing the power-to-weight ratio for later mobile use, the individual engine components have to be revised. The focus is on the development process for the redesign of the crankcase. Through a preliminary examination of the necessary CAx systems, an iterative process chain that combines suitable synthesis and analysis tools is derived. This includes the design of the machine elements, a numerical strength verification using FEM and preparing the model for machining.