Material selection in product design under risk and uncertainty introducing the conditional logit in the madm framework

ABSTRACT

To meet all the functional requirements, choosing an appropriate material takes a vital role in product design. Design is a formulation of information or data (quantitative and qualitative) where some degree of risk and uncertainty always exist. Utility value or probabilistic approach is well suited to address the risk and uncertainty. This article explores the selection of materials under risk and uncertainty introducing the Conditional Logit (CLGT) in rational decision-making framework. A cryogenic storage tank and a spar of a human-powered aircraft (HPA) are considered as case studies to check the suitability of the proposed CLGT model in material selection. The result shows the best material for the spar of HPA and for the cryogenic storage tank are composite material and austenitic steel (SS 301 FH) respectively those are consistent with the real-world practice. The results are compared with other multi-attributed decision-making (MADM) methods of previous works with sensitivity analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Product design
• material selection
• multi-attributed decision-making
• discrete choice analysis
• conditional logit

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Debasis Das

Debasis Das is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The Neotia University. He holds a M.E. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. His current research interests are in the areas of Material Selection in Mechanical Design, Engineering Graphics, Design Optimization and Soft Computing. He has different published papers in national/international journals and conferences.

Somnath Bhattacharya

Somnath Bhattacharya is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Jadavpur University in India. He holds a Ph.D. from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. His current research interests are in the areas of Trajectory Simulation and Design Optimization. Dr. Bhattacharya has published different papers in national and international journals of repute.

Bijan Sarkar

Bijan Sarkar is a Professor in the Department of Production Engineering at Jadavpur University in India. He holds a Ph.D. from the Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. His current research interests are in the areas of Project & Operations Management, Reliability analysis of Engineering Systems, Productivity Management, Soft Computing, Constraint Management, and Grievance Analysis & control. Dr. Sarkar has published journal papers about 132 on his research field. He is a recipient of the Best Paper Award (2003) from Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering and outstanding Paper Award (2006) given by Emerald Literati Network, UK.