Knowledge Base Repository
In addition to research papers, the Design Society is developing several valuable resources for those interested in the study of design. These include a repository of PhD theses, a library of case studies and transcripts of design activities, and an archive of our newsletters. Please note that these resources are accessible exclusively to Design Society members.
Structural complexity metric for engineered complex systems and its application
Sinha, K.; de Weck, O.
Type:
Year:
2012
Editor:
Onishi, M.; Maurer, M.; Kirner, K.; Lindemann, U.
Author:
Series:
DSM
Institution:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
Section:
System Architectures
Page(s):
181-192
ISBN:
978-3-446-43354-0
Abstract:
The complexity of today’s highly engineered products is rooted in the interwoven architecture defined by its components and their interactions. Such structures can be viewed as the adjacency matrix of the associated dependency network representing the product architecture. To evaluate a complex system or to compare it to other systems, numerical assessment of its structural complexity is mandatory. In this paper, we develop a quantitative measure for structural complexity and apply the same to realworld engineered systems like gas turbine engine. It is observed that low topological complexity implies centralized architecture and it increases as one marches towards highly distributed architectures.
Keywords:
