A Student’s Axiomatic Design Application Example of Battery Thermal Controller for High Altitude Balloon

Abstract

The axiomatic design plays a critical role in transferring FRs into DPs and organising scattered design information. Nowadays, the axiomatic design is commonly applied to student engineering design education. Although it assists design organisation, some procedures can be challenging for invoice students. This paper is written to reflect benefits, challenges and potential mistakes when the axiomatic design is applied by invoice students. The reflection is based on a case study, a student lead battery thermal controller (BTC) on a high-altitude balloon is used as the example. Relevant background about the high-altitude balloon was introduced at first. Previous essential information of customer domain and functional domain was clarified before the axiomatic design. Design parameters(DPs) were generated with Morphological Chart to compose candidate concepts. FR-DP matrix was used to evaluate the independence of functional requirements(FRs). Candidate concepts were then selected by probability density function graphs. The most proper concept then was out of Pugh’s Matrix. Through this axiomatic design application, benefits, challenges and potential mistakes were reflected for invoice students. Benefits included convenient errors correction and competent concepts generation. Challenges contain the DPs performance value determination and physical integration of concept. Potential mistakes include generation of inconsistent performance value for bottom-level FRs and invalid DPs.