This paper considers systems with field constraints, when elements cannot be placed in special regions such as a high-temperature field, a high-pressure field, a high magnetic field, etc.  Fields place constraints on architectural modularity choices and provide creative opportunities for the design of complex systems. This paper develops practical design guidelines for modularity by considering field constraints and highlighting on a system block diagram which elements are within a high field region. The ideas are demonstrated on a medical contrast injector that must partially operate in magnetic and sterile fields. These field constraints are shown to be designer choices: by changing the design concept one can move functional elements into or out of fields. This approach provides opportunities for innovation through a focus on moving field boundaries to generate new product-system architecture concepts. For the medical contrast injector device, an exemplar innovation for higher accuracy dosage was moving the pump away from the motor into the magnetic field through an umbilical drive. Overall, field boundaries are inherent considerations in product architecture, and the techniques in this paper provide a foundational set of guidelines and a general approach for designing systems within such considerations. ​

For the full article visit ASME's Digital Collection

Many modern products, such as automobiles, aircrafts, laptops and smartphones, are engineered systems. The performance, function, and architecture of an engineered system continuously changes and improves over time. For example, cell phones of the 1990’s were limited to phone calls and text messages. Today's cell phones are computers capable of cinematography and reading the news. Research in engineered system evolution goes beyond tracking and predicting the technical performance and the functional and architectural changes of existing engineered systems. This research also studies how and why these changes occur and searches for causal factors behind these evolutions. The results of this research are valuable for designers, R&D managers, investors, and policy makers by aiding the generation of innovative design concepts, setting reasonable R&D targets, investing in promising technologies, and developing effective incentive policies. This paper summarizes key research questions, identifies pioneering literature, and discusses the opportunities and challenges for future research in engineered system evolution. Importantly, a free access database is provided for facilitating future research in this area. The database currently includes more than 100,000 data points that belong to 31 technical performance metric categories of 7 engineering systems (i.e., passenger aircraft, orbital launch system, automobile, computer, refrigerator, lamp, and direct-fire ground weapon systems) and their components.