“Working Surface Pairs & Channel and Support Structures”

1. “Working Surface Pairs &Channel and Support Structures”

2. Function => Principle of solution => Embodiment design • There is no useful product without function and we must think all the time about the function of a product. • Principles of solutions we can find with the help of some methods. • The step from principles to the real embodiment design is complicate and there are only very few methods. • Embodiment design is a synthesis we have to bring all the details together to fulfil the function.

3. But the same time we have to analyze, what we have just created. • The only way to do a good engineering design is exactly this way:

4. It‘s not so easy, but when you decided to be an design engineer because you thought it‘s an easy and lazy job, you where totally wrong. • You should look very soon for another job. • But when you like to create new products and you like to do a great effort for this wonderful feeling, to be a creator you are right.

5. When we analyse a system we find characteristics in a bigger connectivity and the result will be more common and will give a wider area. • Complexity is reduced and we find out, what`s really important. This is what we call abstraction. • We create in our thoughts a structure which permits to imagine the different forms of appearence easier. • Abstraction supports our creativity, analytical and systematic thinking. With the help of abstraction it is possible to define a problem independent from random conditions and we can find a universal solution.

6. Synthesis means do use all the informations, to build connections, to combine elements in a new way with new results and to establish an order between this elements. • It means the procedure to search, to find, to construct and to combine. • The significant characteristic of engineering design is the assembling of cognition, single solutions to a complete and functioning system. To combine details to a unit. • Franz Reuleaux (1829-1905) started in 1874 to search for the smallest detail, the smallest machine-element. It needed more than 100 years to find it, because the smallest detail in a machine is between the elements. It`s the Working Surface Pair. But it works only with the Channel and Support Structures.

7. Definitions • Working surfaces are rigid surfaces of materials or generalized interface layers of liquids, gas or fields, which are continously or temporary in a contact with another working surface. They are involved in the transportation of energy, material and / or information of every technical system. • Every exchange of energy, material and/or information happens by working surfaces • The analysis of a working surface must be problem specific. For example, it is possible to divide a working surface in smaller surfaces, when we enlarge the resolution of our view.

8. Boundary surfaces are rigid surfaces of materials or generalized interface layers of liquids, gas or fields, which are never working surfaces. • They never exchange energy, material or information and they don`t have any function. • An important task of the product developer is to decide which surfaces will be working surfaces and which will be boundary surfaces. • In case a boundary surface will in use become a working surface, very often this surface is not designed for these forces and the technical system will be damaged.

9. Working surface pairs are build exactly from two working surfaces, which are temporary, complete or particulary in contact and between this pair energy, material and/or information is transmitted. • A working surface pair can exist temporary. • If the working surfaces which build the working surface pair are disconnected the element doesn`t exist until the working surfaces come in contact again.

10. A function contact is the part of a working surface pair, where actually the interchange happens. • The complete working surface pair can be the function contact. • If the contact of a working surface pair is lost the function contact is also lost.

11. Support structures are volumes of bodies, liquids, gases or spaces with a field-structure, which connect exactly two working surfaces and permit constantly or temporary the transportation of energy, material and/or information between the working surfaces of a body, a liquid or a gas or a field. • If inside a technical component no transportation of energy, material and/or information happens the support structure doesn`t exist. • A support structure exist only together with a working surface pair.

12. Possible support structures are the complete volume of all the possible parts of the body which can be support structures. • The possible support structure defines the functionally volume of a body, a liquid, a gas or a field.

13. Rest structures are all the volumes of a body, a gas or spaces with a field structure, which never will be supporting structure. • They are like boundary surfaces without any function. • Technical components have normally a lot of rest structures, which are not removed, because it´s to expensive. With FEM it`s today easy to find rest structures and for extreme light constructions they are removed.

14. The working structure are all the working surfaces and all the support structures of a technical system, a substructure or a component. • The working structure defines all the elements which have an influence in the function of a system. • A working structure has surface elements and volume elements.

15. 1. Hypothesis • Every basic element of a technical system fulfills it’s function by an interaction with another element. • The real function and the desired effect is possible only in contact between two surfaces. • This surfaces are working surfaces and they build together a working surface pair.

16. 2. Hypothesis • The function of a technical system or a substructure is all the time achieved by at least two working surfaces and a connecting support structure. • The function will be defined only by the character and the interaction of the two working surfaces and the connecting support structure. • If fields are involved, then the interaction of the connecting support structure with at least two other connecting support structures are engaged. • The impact of the involved working surface pairs and the connecting support structures are the only resaon of the effect of a technical system in it`s environment.

17. 3. Hypothesis • Every system, which fulfills functions, consists in two basic elements, working surface pair and channel and supporting structures. They can exist in every quantity, structure and form. • Every working surface pair has exactly two working surfaces. • The smallest existing element in a functionally system, for example a machine, a tecnical subsystem or a machine element is the working surface pair and the generally connected channel and support structure. • The working surface pair is all the time at the interface to a neighbour element in the neighbour- sub- or superiorsystem. • The question of Reuleaux: Where is the smallest element of a machine is answered by this hypothesis.