“Working Surface Pairs &
Channel and Support Structures”
Function => Principle of solution =>
Embodiment design
• There is no useful product without function
and we must think all the time about the
function of a product.
• Principles of solutions we can find with the
help of some methods.
• The step from principles to the real
embodiment design is complicate and there
are only very few methods.
• Embodiment design is a synthesis we have to
bring all the details together to fulfil the
function.
• But the same time we have to analyze, what
we have just created.
• The only way to do a good engineering design
is exactly this way:
• It‘s not so easy, but when you decided to be
an design engineer because you thought it‘s
an easy and lazy job, you where totally wrong.
• You should look very soon for another job.
• But when you like to create new products and
you like to do a great effort for this wonderful
feeling, to be a creator you are right.
• When we analyse a system we find
characteristics in a bigger connectivity and the
result will be more common and will give a
wider area.
• Complexity is reduced and we find out, what`s
really important. This is what we call
abstraction.
• We create in our thoughts a structure which
permits to imagine the different forms of
appearence easier.
• Abstraction supports our creativity, analytical
and systematic thinking. With the help of
abstraction it is possible to define a problem
independent from random conditions and we
can find a universal solution.
• Synthesis means do use all the informations, to build
connections, to combine elements in a new way with
new results and to establish an order between this
elements.
• It means the procedure to search, to find, to construct
and to combine.
• The significant characteristic of engineering design is
the assembling of cognition, single solutions to a
complete and functioning system. To combine details to
a unit.
• Franz Reuleaux (1829-1905) started in 1874 to
search for the smallest detail, the smallest machineelement. It needed more than 100 years to find it,
because the smallest detail in a machine is between the
elements. It`s the Working Surface Pair. But it works
only with the Channel and Support Structures.
Definitions
• Working surfaces are rigid surfaces of
materials or generalized interface layers of
liquids, gas or fields, which are continously or
temporary in a contact with another working
surface. They are involved in the
transportation of energy, material and / or
information of every technical system.
• Every exchange of energy, material and/or
information happens by working surfaces
• The analysis of a working surface must be
problem specific. For example, it is possible to
divide a working surface in smaller surfaces,
when we enlarge the resolution of our view.
• Boundary surfaces are rigid surfaces of materials or
generalized interface layers of liquids, gas or fields,
which are never working surfaces.
• They never exchange energy, material or information
and they don`t have any function.
• An important task of the product developer is to decide
which surfaces will be working surfaces and which will
be boundary surfaces.
• In case a boundary surface will in use become a
working surface, very often this surface is not designed
for these forces and the technical system will be
damaged.
• Working surface pairs are build exactly
from two working surfaces, which are
temporary, complete or particulary in contact
and between this pair energy, material and/or
information is transmitted.
• A working surface pair can exist temporary.
• If the working surfaces which build the
working surface pair are disconnected the
element doesn`t exist until the working
surfaces come in contact again.
• A function contact is the part of a
working surface pair, where actually the
interchange happens.
• The complete working surface pair can
be the function contact.
• If the contact of a working surface pair
is lost the function contact is also lost.
• Support structures are volumes of bodies, liquids,
gases or spaces with a field-structure, which connect
exactly two working surfaces and permit constantly or
temporary the transportation of energy, material and/or
information between the working surfaces of a body, a
liquid or a gas or a field.
• If inside a technical component no transportation of
energy, material and/or information happens the
support structure doesn`t exist.
• A support structure exist only together with a working
surface pair.
• Possible support structures are the complete volume
of all the possible parts of the body which can be
support structures.
• The possible support structure defines the functionally
volume of a body, a liquid, a gas or a field.
• Rest structures are all the volumes of a
body, a gas or spaces with a field structure,
which never will be supporting structure.
• They are like boundary surfaces without any
function.
• Technical components have normally a lot of
rest structures, which are not removed,
because it´s to expensive. With FEM it`s today
easy to find rest structures and for extreme
light constructions they are removed.
• The working structure are all the
working surfaces and all the support
structures of a technical system, a
substructure or a component.
• The working structure defines all the
elements which have an influence in the
function of a system.
• A working structure has surface
elements and volume elements.
1. Hypothesis
• Every basic element of a technical
system fulfills it’s function by an
interaction with another element.
• The real function and the desired effect
is possible only in contact between two
surfaces.
• This surfaces are working surfaces and
they build together a working surface
pair.
2. Hypothesis
• The function of a technical system or a
substructure is all the time achieved by at
least two working surfaces and a connecting
support structure.
• The function will be defined only by the
character and the interaction of the two
working surfaces and the connecting support
structure.
• If fields are involved, then the interaction of
the connecting support structure with at least
two other connecting support structures are
engaged.
• The impact of the involved working surface
pairs and the connecting support structures
are the only resaon of the effect of a technical
system in it`s environment.
3. Hypothesis
• Every system, which fulfills functions, consists in two
basic elements, working surface pair and channel and
supporting structures. They can exist in every quantity,
structure and form.
• Every working surface pair has exactly two working
surfaces.
• The smallest existing element in a functionally system,
for example a machine, a tecnical subsystem or a
machine element is the working surface pair and the
generally connected channel and support structure.
• The working surface pair is all the time at the interface
to a neighbour element in the neighbour- sub- or
superiorsystem.
• The question of Reuleaux: Where is the smallest
element of a machine is answered by this hypothesis.