Creative Design of Mechanical Devices

Book excerpt: A survey of engineering creative techniques and a novel creative design methodology for the systematic generation of all possible design configurations of mechanical devices. It provides a solid background to assist instructors teaching creative design in mechanical engineering. It equally helps students to hone their creative talents in an effective manner, and it supplies a powerful tool for design engineers to come up with fresh concepts to meet new design requirements and constraints, and/or to avoid patent protection of existing products. The text is organised in such a way that it can be used for teaching or for self-study. It is designed for undergraduate courses in engineering design and/or senior design projects, but may also be adopted for graduate courses in advanced machine design, advanced kinematics, and/or special topics for teaching creative design in mechanical engineering.