Re-Imagining Engineering Design: Growing Radical Cyber-Physical-Socio Phenotypes
Lead Research Organisation:
Queen's University of Belfast
Department Name: Sch Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Abstract
The fundamental goal of this proposal is to Re-Imagine Design Engineering so that new ideas and concepts are generated rapidly, and where both the product and its associated manufacturing system (including its supply chain and people) are designed concurrently and fully tailored to each other. By doing this the >70% of lifecycle and supply chain costs that are "locked in" at the concept design stage can be understood, minimised and verified.
This programme will target the transformation of Design Engineering via Interoperable Cyber-Physical-Social (CPS) Services in which: (i) engineering competences and multiscale physics are integrated by innovative digital capabilities, (ii) advanced analytics support capture of knowledge, enhance resilience and predict compliance by interoperable 'smart testing' and fully simulated lifecycle analyses to validate model-centric designs, (iii) novel business/supply chain models provide a transparent value stream from digital design through to manufacturing and pathways to ensure the UK develops the next generation of digital engineering talent. Our vision of the future where manufacturing systems are self-organising, self-aware and distributed, brings a radically different manufacturing industry than exists today.
This leads naturally to identifying four major research challenges to this programme:
1. Interoperability - CPS Design Theory: How can we generate ideas and concepts rapidly such that artefacts are designed concurrently with manufacturing systems to create resilient extended enterprises with open communication throughout the whole system?
2. The Cyber World - CPS Modelling Design & Manufacture: How can we represent concepts virtually such that key design characteristics driving intended behaviour are understood, coded and realised via robust, intelligently manufactured product variants?
3. The Physical World - CPS Concept to Reality: What verification and validation concepts are needed to find the shortest and most beneficial pathway to physical realisation aided by a cyber-physical-socio manufacturing ecosystem?
4. The Socio World - CPS The Extended Manufacturing Enterprise: How can we translate and exploit concepts in new organisational structures within a cyber-physical-socio ecosystem to accelerate evolution of design solutions across extended enterprises?
The four technical challenges are integrated and pose interdependent challenges. They form the four threads which are to be woven together in this programme. A range of approaches for modelling, evaluation and prediction are needed for the whole programme, and dealing with such diverse system entities from simulation models to individual human and business organisations necessitates a diversity of technical approaches.
The concept of 'cyber-genes' and 'cyber-seeds' that can be used in an evolutionary approach form the core thread to provide a new CPS design theory but requires significant interlinkage with the other aspects. For example, CAD models in the cyber world are sufficient for some products, but in general systems are multi-functional and multi-disciplinary and will require a range of modelling methods to provide the necessary design evaluation data, such as with whole life costing. Similarly, although possible to communicate with manufacturing (e.g. CNC machines), feedback of intelligent data directly into a live design is not yet done, and new methods are needed in both design systems and the organisation to allow this capability. Overlaying evolutionary algorithms to these will necessarily require all elements to be adapted and changed, as both the system and underlying methods evolve. Therefore, these nature analogous processes and a range of alternative approaches (e.g. fractals, agent-based systems, response surface methodologies etc.) will be explored.
This programme will target the transformation of Design Engineering via Interoperable Cyber-Physical-Social (CPS) Services in which: (i) engineering competences and multiscale physics are integrated by innovative digital capabilities, (ii) advanced analytics support capture of knowledge, enhance resilience and predict compliance by interoperable 'smart testing' and fully simulated lifecycle analyses to validate model-centric designs, (iii) novel business/supply chain models provide a transparent value stream from digital design through to manufacturing and pathways to ensure the UK develops the next generation of digital engineering talent. Our vision of the future where manufacturing systems are self-organising, self-aware and distributed, brings a radically different manufacturing industry than exists today.
This leads naturally to identifying four major research challenges to this programme:
1. Interoperability - CPS Design Theory: How can we generate ideas and concepts rapidly such that artefacts are designed concurrently with manufacturing systems to create resilient extended enterprises with open communication throughout the whole system?
2. The Cyber World - CPS Modelling Design & Manufacture: How can we represent concepts virtually such that key design characteristics driving intended behaviour are understood, coded and realised via robust, intelligently manufactured product variants?
3. The Physical World - CPS Concept to Reality: What verification and validation concepts are needed to find the shortest and most beneficial pathway to physical realisation aided by a cyber-physical-socio manufacturing ecosystem?
4. The Socio World - CPS The Extended Manufacturing Enterprise: How can we translate and exploit concepts in new organisational structures within a cyber-physical-socio ecosystem to accelerate evolution of design solutions across extended enterprises?
The four technical challenges are integrated and pose interdependent challenges. They form the four threads which are to be woven together in this programme. A range of approaches for modelling, evaluation and prediction are needed for the whole programme, and dealing with such diverse system entities from simulation models to individual human and business organisations necessitates a diversity of technical approaches.
The concept of 'cyber-genes' and 'cyber-seeds' that can be used in an evolutionary approach form the core thread to provide a new CPS design theory but requires significant interlinkage with the other aspects. For example, CAD models in the cyber world are sufficient for some products, but in general systems are multi-functional and multi-disciplinary and will require a range of modelling methods to provide the necessary design evaluation data, such as with whole life costing. Similarly, although possible to communicate with manufacturing (e.g. CNC machines), feedback of intelligent data directly into a live design is not yet done, and new methods are needed in both design systems and the organisation to allow this capability. Overlaying evolutionary algorithms to these will necessarily require all elements to be adapted and changed, as both the system and underlying methods evolve. Therefore, these nature analogous processes and a range of alternative approaches (e.g. fractals, agent-based systems, response surface methodologies etc.) will be explored.
Organisations
- Queen's University of Belfast, United Kingdom (Lead Research Organisation)
- Rolls-Royce (Project Partner)
- Bombardier Aerospace, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- Far UK Ltd (Project Partner)
- Airbus Operations Limited, Bristol (Project Partner)
- OxMet Technologies (Project Partner)
- Glen Dimplex Group (UK) (Project Partner)
- Manufacturing Technology Centre, United Kingdom (Project Partner)
- International TechneGroup Limited (UK) (Project Partner)
- JW Kane Precision Engineering (Project Partner)
- Denroy Plastics Limited (Project Partner)
Publications

Friel I
(2021)
A Novel Design System for Exploiting Additive Manufacturing


Price M
(2022)
Generative design for additive manufacturing using a biological development analogy
in Journal of Computational Design and Engineering

Torres-Sanchez C
(2021)
Comparison of Selective Laser Melted Commercially Pure Titanium Sheet-Based Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces and Trabecular-Like Strut-Based Scaffolds for Tissue Engineering
in Advanced Engineering Materials
Description | Biohaviour - The Green Engine |
Amount | £27,000 (GBP) |
Organisation | Rolls Royce Group Plc |
Sector | Private |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2022 |
End | 09/2025 |
Title | Supporting Information Files for: Comparison of SLM cpTi sheet-TPMS and trabecular-like strut-based scaffolds for tissue engineering |
Description | Supporting Information Files for: Comparison of SLM cpTi sheet-TPMS and trabecular-like strut-based scaffolds for tissue engineeringThis systematic comparison between sheet-based-TPMS and strut-based ordered and disordered Lattice topologies offers insights into parametric designs for tissue engineering scaffolds intended as implants in regenerative medicine. The study explores the effect of topology on compressive properties and in vitro osteoblastogenesis. TPMS-sheet Gyroid and IWP, Voronoi-tessellation with varying levels of sharpness and BCC-orthogonal Lattices were studied. Disparities between the design intent and the as-manufactured scaffolds that are intrinsic to the SLM manufacturing process are considered to ensure actual porosity and surface-area-per-unit-volume, two important factors in tissue engineering, are consistent across the set. Surface analysis reports the presence of a micro-porosity created by partlysintered cpTi particles. The TPMS topologies display a stretching-dominated deformation and the strut-based disordered ones a bending-dominated double-shear failure. Although the trabecular-like structures exhibit an enhanced compressive behaviour when the designed topology was smoothed, they are more prone to printing imperfections with the sharper 2 finishes. The in vitro studies reveal that the trabecular-sharp topology displays a faster proliferation rate, explained by concavity-driven cellular growth, but its smooth counterpart promotes a larger differentiation extent, outperforming TPMS, as it is aided by larger pore throats lined with a micro-porosity at the scale of osteoblastic geometric features. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
URL | https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Supporting_Information_Files_for_Comparison_of_SLM_c... |
Title | Supporting Information Files for: Comparison of SLM cpTi sheet-TPMS and trabecular-like strut-based scaffolds for tissue engineering |
Description | Supporting Information Files for: Comparison of SLM cpTi sheet-TPMS and trabecular-like strut-based scaffolds for tissue engineeringThis systematic comparison between sheet-based-TPMS and strut-based ordered and disordered Lattice topologies offers insights into parametric designs for tissue engineering scaffolds intended as implants in regenerative medicine. The study explores the effect of topology on compressive properties and in vitro osteoblastogenesis. TPMS-sheet Gyroid and IWP, Voronoi-tessellation with varying levels of sharpness and BCC-orthogonal Lattices were studied. Disparities between the design intent and the as-manufactured scaffolds that are intrinsic to the SLM manufacturing process are considered to ensure actual porosity and surface-area-per-unit-volume, two important factors in tissue engineering, are consistent across the set. Surface analysis reports the presence of a micro-porosity created by partlysintered cpTi particles. The TPMS topologies display a stretching-dominated deformation and the strut-based disordered ones a bending-dominated double-shear failure. Although the trabecular-like structures exhibit an enhanced compressive behaviour when the designed topology was smoothed, they are more prone to printing imperfections with the sharper 2 finishes. The in vitro studies reveal that the trabecular-sharp topology displays a faster proliferation rate, explained by concavity-driven cellular growth, but its smooth counterpart promotes a larger differentiation extent, outperforming TPMS, as it is aided by larger pore throats lined with a micro-porosity at the scale of osteoblastic geometric features. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2021 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
URL | https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Supporting_Information_Files_for_Comparison_of_SLM_c... |
Description | Invited Seminar to the EPSRC NetworkPlus in Digitalised Surface Manufacturing |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | 20+ Academic and Research staff attended this seminar. The DSM Network arranges these to receive input from other relevant but external research activities from which they may learn. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://digitalisedsurfacemanufacturing.com/ |
Description | Nature Inspired Design Seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Part of the Loughborough University seminar series which invites external speakers to deliver seminars on relevant or interesting research topics. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |