Designing an attachment structure that is both novel and meets the system requirements can be a difficult task especially for inexperienced designers. This paper presents a design methodology for concept generation of a "parent/child" attachment system. The "child" is broadly defined as any device, part, or subsystem that will attach to any existing system, part, or device called the "parent." An inductive research process was used to study a variety of products, patents, and biological examples that exemplified the parent/child system. Common traits among these products were found and categorized as attachment principles in three different domains: mechanical, material, and field. The attachment principles within the mechanical domain and accompanying examples are the focus of this paper. As an example of the method, a case study of generating concepts for a bridge mounted wind energy harvester using the mechanical attachment principles derived from the methodology and TRIZ principles derived from Altshuller's matrix of contradictions is presented.

Date Published: 5 April 2012
PDF: 12 pages
Proc. SPIE 8347, Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2012, 83472I (5 April 2012); doi: 10.1117/12.915237

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8347:
Nondestructive Characterization for Composite Materials, Aerospace Engineering, Civil Infrastructure, and Homeland Security 2012
Andrew L. Gyekenyesi, Editor(s)