Abstract
This paper proposes a case-based approach to the conceptual design of mechanism, especially of the generation of design alternatives in function generation and motion transmission tasks. The aim of this work is to generate and provide various design alternatives by utilizing the previous design concepts underling in the existing design cases. The approach is based on the basic idea that the whole design concepts or sub-concepts extracted from different design cases can be merged to generate a variety of new design alternatives. The notion of virtual function generator is introduced to conceptualize and represent all possible underlying design concepts in the prior design cases. The virtual function generators are extracted in advance from the existing mechanism and serve as new conceptual building blocks for the synthesis of mechanism. Various design alternatives are generated basically by merging tow virtual function generators that partially match the specified function. By utilizing the design concepts that have been effectively used in the previous design cases. he proposed approach could efficiently produce more feasible design concepts than from-scratch ones. The approach proposed in this paper is illustrated with a design example.