Design rationale analysis methods for aeronautical engineering

The fundamental challenge for the 21st century aircraft engineer is to stay on top of the complexity and size of the design problem. This has multiple facets. The solution to a design question (such as, what does the wing of a next generation transport aircraft look like) is constrained by regulations, performance requirements and environmental, sustainability and maintainability considerations. The resulting product itself is complex too, as driven by high demands on redundancy and functionality. Inevitably, design processes mirror this complexity and lose efficiency with increasing scale. This PhD will help us tackle this problem from the point of view of capturing the rationale behind design decisions in innovative ways - their efficient subsequent retrieval will aid product certification and re-design in a way that scales favourably with product complexity.