Engineering design centre, University of Newcastle

Abstract

The Newcastle Engineering Design Centre undertakes fundamental and applied research into the design process for 'engineer-to-order' (ETO) products. Typically, these are 'one-off',multi-disciplinary products such as ships, power plants, military aircraft, offshore oil and gas platforms, etc. Increasingly complex in nature, ETO projects form a large sector of modern industry; there is a corresponding need for tailored research support in this area. Working closely with leading industrial collaborators, the objective of the Newcastle EDC is to provide practical tools and methodologies which assist the designer with real problems such as design integration, sustainable lifecycle design, design option evaluation, selection and optimisation. A variety of projects, aligned to these basic themes, have been undertaken by the research team at Newcastle over the past 12 years of EDC operation. There follows a synopsis of recent samples of such work. © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005.