Group No: <Your group #>
ME 407 – Spring 2015
1/2
(R4 - To be placed in the Main Text of the Final Report)
CONCEPTUAL DESIGN
I. INTRODUCTION
In this report, you are expected to explain alternative design concepts you have developed
including your evaluation process on these concepts which in turn results in the selection
of best concept(s). In this part, you should make a brief introduction (3-4 sentences would
suffice) to your conceptual design process.
II. CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENTATION
The alternatives you have developed up to now should be presented and discussed in this
section. Make sure to decompose your design problem into its functions/elements using
physical and functional decomposition paradigms. For each function provide alternative
approaches. Hence, a morphological chart [1] is to be used for this purpose. The
following items should be included:




Functional decomposition in chart and list forms
Morphological chart
Detailed explanation of each concept with hand sketches and enough textual
information to be clearly understood. Also emphasize the rationalé (why is this
concept relevant for your purpose?)
Whenever necessary you should include pre-design (back-of-the-envelope)
calculations (such as motion, speed, power, force, torque requirements, space
limitations etc.) or perform simple physical trials (simple experiments) to prove
that the concept is a potential solution.
III. EVALUATION OF CONCEPTS
In this section, you are going to evaluate your alternative concepts presented in the
previous section. Define a number of metrics (cost, ease of implement, fun factor etc.) that
will be used in the evaluation process. You may wish to compare these alternatives
objectively using the defined metrics (use of a comparison matrix is recommended such as
Pugh’s concept selection process). At the end of this section you need to come up with the
“best evaluated design.” In the report you should present:





A full list of evaluation criteria (These should be derived from Problem Definition
Document. Give brief explanation for each criteria about how it is derived from the
Problem Definition Document)
Weighting factors for the full list of evaluation criteria (Use either Hierarchial
Objective Tree method or the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for deciding on the
weighting factors)
Decision matrices for each subfunction
o Brief discussion of the evaluation results
Presentation of your overall conceptual design alternatives (Minimum 8
alternatives)
o Enough visual and textual info to present your overall concepts clearly
Weighted decision matrix to evaluate your overall concepts
Group No: <Your group #>
ME 407 – Spring 2015
2/2
IV. BEST CONCEPT
Once the best concept is identified and objectively verified, you are expected to concentrate
on the details of this concept. You should present your best concept in detail with a
representative sketch and textual information.
V. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
In this section summarize the key points of your conceptual design and briefly discuss
how you will proceed towards the detailed design phase.
REFERENCES
[1] Dieter G.E., Engineering Design, 3/e, pp.175-177, McGraw Hill Boston MA, 2000.
Important notes on the report:
 Use this document as the template and follow this format (margins, line
spacing, fonts, font sizes etc.).
 Pay extra attention to the content of this document.
 Do NOT use a cover page!
 In writing this report use your own expressions and make sure that the
text flows in a logical order.
 All tables and figures should have proper captions and must be
referenced in the main text..
 Cite references where necessary. Do not place any references in the
References section unless it is cited within the main text.
 Do not exceed 30 pages and use the pages efficiently.