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"Modular design"
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Prefab housing and the future of building : product to process
As we stand on the cusp of a fundamental restructuring of the housing and building industries, this book provides a timely overview of prefabricated and modular housing. The idea of prefabricated and modular housing is not a new one: since the 19th century, designers, inventors, engineers, builders, developers, and entrepreneurs have all been fascinated by the idea of the factory-built home. But the current international housing shortages and affordability crises have given a new urgency to the need to transform building construction in the 21st century. Richly illustrated and drawing on historical examples and contemporary design studies, the book takes the reader through the history, theory and design of the prefab, leading up to a discussion of contemporary problems and opportunities.
Book
Concept and Main Results of Development of Induction Motors with Removable Cores
The algorithm and main results of the development of a line of electric motors of modular design are presented. The technology of stator core production involves separate production of the frame and the wound stator core with their subsequent assembly. The design elements of the motors of the line (frames, bearing shields, cooling modules, terminal boxes, etc.) are unified with the possibility of their combination for motors of several sizes. When designing the active part, the concept of maximum unification of technological equipment was adopted. Considerable attention is paid to increasing the efficiency by reducing additional losses. The design algorithm is based on the combined use of mathematical models based on circuit theory and models based on the finite element method.
Journal Article
Modular Design of Steel Box Girders: A BIM-Driven Framework Integrating Knowledge Graphs and Data
Background: Steel box girders are widely employed in bridge engineering due to their excellent mechanical properties and construction convenience, yet their modular design still encounters bottlenecks such as knowledge reuse difficulties and information silos. This study proposes a BIM-driven framework based on knowledge graphs and data fusion. By constructing a professional knowledge graph comprising 85 core entity types and 150 semantic relationships (integrated with over 15,000 knowledge units), systematic management of design knowledge is achieved. The developed BIM reverse modeling technology improves parametric modeling efficiency by 30–40%, while the data fusion mechanism supports over 90% accuracy in design conflict detection. The intelligent decision-making system built upon this framework meets 75% of business scenario requirements while effectively assisting critical decisions such as module selection. Results demonstrate that this framework significantly enhances design collaboration efficiency and intelligence through knowledge structuring and deep data integration. Although some achievements were validated via simulation due to limited field measurement data, the approach demonstrates strong engineering applicability and provides novel technical pathways and methodological support for advancing digital transformation in bridge engineering.
Journal Article
A systematic literature review of modular product design (MPD) from the perspective of sustainability
Modular product design (MPD), as its name implies, subdivides complicated products and systems into components and considers them individually instead of as an amalgamated whole. Because of its merit in reducing complexity, MPD is widely used in engineering fields, especially in design engineering. Over the last decade, increasing concerns about environmental impact have driven manufacturers to reconsider their product design processes from the view of sustainability. The blending of these concepts—modularity and sustainability—has attracted significant attention from both academia and industry. The ways in which sustainability influences MPD are not fully understood, evidencing a gap that needs to be further researched. This review examines more than 100 studies addressing ways MPD is associated with sustainability factors and classifies these studies based on major sustainability themes. The initial review and analysis were conducted using literature summarization tables and a maturity index. Our search emphasized not only the performance of MPD methodologies with respect to sustainability factors but also the relationship between MPD and sustainability categories. Our review results indicate that from an academic perspective, research over the last 15 years has seen a significant increase in studies involving MPD and product life cycles, MPD and product innovation, and MPD and environmental management. Secondarily, our findings reveal that from an industry perspective, the literature shows that modularity has a positive impact on sustainability and identifies several social sustainability-related areas in MPD that could benefit from further investigation.
Journal Article
On the Modular Design Application for the Gas Turbine Sector: A Performance Optimization Approach in the Context of Industry 4.0
Production changes enabled by Industry 4.0 (I4.0) allow industries to respond to customer needs in a much more precise and agile manner. It also permits companies to focus on the development of sustainable and more efficient solutions. The energy sector is still lacking progress in this context, however, and the implementation of I4.0 and modularity could help to solve such issues. The present research study contributes to addressing the research gap in I4.0 implementation in the Gas Turbine (GT) sector by developing a design application for modular GT configuration. The main objective of the developed modular design application (MDA) is to facilitate the relationship between customer and engineer by providing an accessible application (program), including pre-designed heat cycles (HCs), that proposes optimized modular solutions, according to customer requirements, using simulation. Indeed, this study presents the functioning of the novel application, the different deployed components and their variables, such as the compressor efficiency, heat exchangers, or turbine stages, and the decision variable, e.g., the costs of generated energy. Simulations and comparisons using reported HCs in the literature have been performed to validate the accuracy of the simulation processes. Finally, a study case is presented, placing the MDA in an industrial context to illustrate its benefits and to provide solutions for GT modularity. It is concluded that the developed MDA correctly simulates HCs and enables a first step towards modular HC design. Indeed, the proposed MDA architecture allows for continuous improvement and expansion, e.g., by the addition of HC-related components or the integration of different entry variables, such as the company’s financial scope, world location, desired power, and available components.
Journal Article
Research and Design of Key System of Jacking Formwork for Super High-Rise Building
To enhance construction efficiency and structural stability, this study investigates the mechanical behavior and deformation characteristics of a jacking steel platform system used in the core-tube construction of a supertall building. Field monitoring was conducted on site to record stress, settlement, and inclination during the jacking, construction, and self-climbing stages. A finite element model was developed to simulate the platform’s mechanical response and validated against the field measurements. Results indicate that stress and deformation remained within safe limits throughout all stages, and the vertical deformation difference between the core tube and the outer frame was primarily governed by concrete shrinkage and creep. An improved modular design was proposed to address connection limitations in the steel truss, and cross-section optimization was applied using the stress ratio method. Comparative analysis against the original diamond-type truss baseline showed that the improved system increased overall strength by 5.88% and stiffness by 4.82% while enhancing truss versatility and structural stability. These findings provide a technical basis for the modular design and optimization of jacking steel platform systems, contributing to safer and more efficient construction practices.
Journal Article
Novel Battery Module Design for Increased Resource Efficiency
The work presented focuses on a material efficient, modular design of a battery module for vehicle applications. Furthermore, the possibility of disassembly of individual components was considered. The constructive design focused on the combination of cast aluminum components, lightweight composites panels, and aluminum-foam phase-change material (PCM) composites. This led to an innovative battery module, which was finally implemented on a demonstrator level. The required cooling power of the module could be reduced by approx. 20% compared to conventional battery module setups. Furthermore, the constructive design of the module and the use of a “debonding-on-demand” technology enabled significantly faster disassembly. Die to the combination of these advantages and the possibility to give individual parts of the module a second life for new modules, the module shows a high resource efficiency as well as high CO2 savings potential.
Journal Article
A sustainable modular product design approach with key components and uncertain end-of-life strategy consideration
Today, sustainability emphasis is imperative for modern design and manufacturing enterprises; therefore, sustainability assessment has attracted increasing attention. In this study, we use cost, environmental impact, and labor time as indicators to measure a comprehensive set of sustainability dimensions: economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Similarly, modular product design (MPD), due to its benefits to design and manufacturing, has been widely accepted as a useful strategy. The need for customizing MPD for various sustainability purposes across a product’s life cycle motivates this study. Our research goal is to develop a MPD approach to improve the product life cycle performance for dimensions of sustainability. We also concentrate on two current product design focused research gaps: (1) how to best handle key components and (2) taking into account life cycle uncertainty at the component or product end-of-life (EOL) stage. Key components represent core techniques and can have the highest sustainability impact. We specify key components and then develop three sustainable clustering algorithms to generate component modules based on the identified key components. For EOL uncertainty, we adopt fuzzy logic to assess 14 EOL characteristics and use modified transfer equations to convert fuzzy evaluations to designer’s perception toward sustainability. Left-right defuzzification method is employed to estimate the probability of each EOL strategy and calculate the expected EOL sustainability values for each component. The Module Structure Sustainability Index (MSSI) advances toward optimizing sustainability in order to determine the best component modules. A coffee maker case study is used to illustrate the proposed methodology.
Journal Article
Design and Implementation of Flywheel Universal Control and Test System Software
In response to the problems of strong specificity, poor universality, and high maintenance difficulty of existing flywheel control software, this paper develops a generalized flywheel control and testing software. By analyzing the problems in the universality, automation, parallelism, and reusability of existing equipment, and adopting the modular design concept, the design is carried out in the mode of hardware generalization to meet the control and testing requirements of various types of flywheel products, improve the universality and testing efficiency of the control software, and verify the accuracy and stability of the control software through experiments.
Journal Article