DFX Analysis Applied to Composite Products

The concept of concurrent engineering (CE) has changed the traditional process of design to an integrated process, comprising all aspects of design, manufacturing, costing, process control etc. In composite product development, CE is adopted to enhance quality, to reduce time of production, and to reduce cost. There have been several models that consider design for minimal weight, design for cost, design for quality, design for manufacture, design for reliability, design for metal inserts, design for environment etc., separately for composite product development. In the present paper, we apply the graph theoretic approach to DFX analysis methodology for design of composite products. The DFX methodology is new to composite design, and is applied to study the various DFX components, like design for cost (DFC), design for manufacture (DFM), and design for minimal weight (DFMW), simultaneously. In this study, an example for development of fiber reinforced polymer composite (FRP) drive shafts is taken up. Several material combinations like E-glass/epoxy, E-glass/polyester, and HM-carbon/epoxy composite materials are compared in light of their performance with conventional steel material. The concurrent graph theoretic approach with a permanent function is used to account for the interdependencies existing among the design parameters in studying DFMW, DFM, and DFC.