Materials and Design 21 Ž2000.

199᎐206

A method for optimal material selection aided with decision

making theory

Dong-Hyun Jee a , Ki-Ju Kang b,U

a
Department of Operation, Korea Electric Power Company, YoungGwang, Chonnam 513-880, South Korea
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chonnam National Uni¨ ersity, Kwangju 500-757, South Korea

Received 12 July 1999; accepted 1 September 1999

Abstract

As a CAE ŽComputer Aided Engineering. tool to help design engineers, the procedure of material selection should be
objective so as to minimize personal bias and it should be able to be coded into the software of ‘expert system’. In this work, we
have utilized the theories of decision-making. One of them is the concept of entropy; to evaluate the weight factor for each
material property or performance index, and the other is TOPIS; to rank the candidate materials, for which several requirements
are considered simultaneously. As an example, the procedure to select the optimal material for a flywheel has been developed.
We can grade the candidate materials for given subjective weight. In the cases for which fatigue strength or fracture toughness is
weighted, the chosen materials coincide with the ones utilized for a commercial flywheel in support of our approach. 䊚 2000
Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Decision-making theory; Entropy; TOPSIS; Weight factor; Separation measure

1. Introduction sions. At the discriminating stage, all requirements are

Recently, many traditional materials which have
served in engineering applications for a long time are
being replaced by the so-called ‘new materials’, in
order to meet the demand of weight reduction and
performance enhancement. The rapid spread of com-
puters and the development of information networks
such as the Internet makes it easier to construct new
databases or use existing databases of material proper-
ties. Consequently, a few studies have been performed
to provide a theoretical base for material selection
procedures. Sandstrom w1x developed a selection proce-
dure consisting of two stages, i.e. discriminating and
optimizing to minimize the number of qualitative deci-
U intrinsic material properties, but also for its compatibil-
Corresponding author. Tel.: q82-62-530-1668; fax: q82-62-530-
1689.
E-mail address: kjkang@chonnam.chonnam.ac.kr ŽK. Kang..
considered on properties which do not influence the
final sizing of the component in question. At the op-
timizing stage, a number of materials which survive the
discriminating stage are ranked with the help of merit
indices to decide which material is the most suitable in
a given situation. Ashby w2x constructed Material
Property Charts for a wide range of mechanical and
thermal properties. The charts serve two main pur-
poses: fundamental relationships between material
properties become self evident on the charts; and the
charts may be used to select the optimal material for a
particular engineering application, based on the selec-
tion criteria. Bamkin and Piearcey w3x considered a
component as a working part of a larger assembly.
They argued that the material is chosen not only for its
ity with linked components. On noting that each process
in design including material selection is not complete

0261-3069r00r$ - see front matter 䊚 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 3 0 6 9 Ž 9 9 . 0 0 0 6 6 - 7
200 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206
until every adjoining process is complete, they sug-
gested an object model of knowledge-based material
selection in which materials are chosen iteratively in
parallel with the requirements of the link. The relation-
ship between linked components is stored in a software
structure.
Garton et al. w4x used Fatigue Property Charts to
select the optimal class or subclass of material in
minimum weight design for infinite fatigue life. Design
criteria were displayed in the charts and provide a
systematic basis to the design process. Takuma et al. w5x
constructed a neural network which learned the pat-
tern sets dealing with the interaction between various
mechanical strengths and material ingredients. They
argue that the neural network, a kind of artificial
intelligence, can be used successfully to evaluate an
optimal material for the given performance of a
product.
Generally a number of criteria or requirements
should be simultaneously considered to select a mate-
rial for a given component. Few studies except for
Sandstrom w1x, however, have been done to provide a
basis on managing several criteria or requirements and
ranking the candidate materials. In this paper, an ap-
proach to choose the optimal material for a given
component is described, and material properties are
classified into qualitative and quantitative properties
according to Waterman and Ashby w6x. Performance
indices w6,7x are evaluated for a component under de-
sign. They are used as functional parameters in a
rational procedure of material selection. To decide the
relative ranking among candidate materials according
to several requirements, Yoon’s w8x algorithm TOPSIS
ŽTechnique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal
Solution., a kind of decision making theory, is utilized.
The compatibility with other components linked with in
a larger assembly is not considered. The approach
adopted here is meant to help a design engineer make
sensible decision on materials selection.
Table 1
Typical examples of quantitative and qualitative material properties
Quantitative properties
Elastic modulus
Yield stress
Ultimate tensile strength
Creep rupture stress
Fatigue endurance limit
Fracture toughness
Melting temperature
Density
Price, price index
Volume
Minimum dimension
2. Material selection procedure
2.1. Quantifying the requirements
First, the material properties that should be taken
into account are identified and the requirements of
each material property are formulated. The require-
ments of a number of material properties are quantita-
tively formulated. Other properties Žfor example, corro-
sion resistance, aesthetics, etc.. can be formulated only
qualitatively, such as YesrNo or PoorrGoodrExcel-
lent. Table 1 shows typical examples of qualitative and
quantitative material properties. We use a bi-polar
method w9x to grade a material for each qualitative
requirement. For example, regarding degree of 0᎐10,
10 means the most desirable while 0 means the most
undesirable; and 5 means the medium between them.
But in the case of material properties concerning pro-
fit, a degree of 9 is three times as desirable as 3.
2.2. Combination of requirements
In selecting materials for a given component one
should consider all requirements simultaneously. For
convenience of procedure it is beneficial to combine
some of them. The performance indices proposed by
Waterman and Ashby w6x are a useful tool. Only for
requirements which can be quantitatively formulated,
the material properties are combined to be a perfor-
mance index, using physical relation or equations
among them.
2.3. Building a material properties matrix
The values of material properties or performance
indices for each candidate material are expressed in a
material property matrix as
Qualitative material properties
Oxidation resistance
Aging tendency
Corrosion resistance
Radiation sensitivity
Toxicity
Dimensional stability
Workability as cold formability and machinability
Hardenability and weldability
Possibilities of surface treatment
Surface condition
Product shape
 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206 201

X1 ⭈⭈⭈ Xj ⭈⭈⭈ Xn sj ␻ j
␻ jU s n . Ž4.
A1
x 11 ⭈⭈⭈ x1 j ⭈⭈⭈ x1 n Ý sj ␻ j
⭈⭈ js1
⭈⭈ ⭈⭈ ⭈⭈
D s Ai
x i1 ⭈⭈⭈ xi j ⭈⭈⭈ xin
⭈⭈ It would be reasonable that the weight s j is assigned a
Am ⭈⭈ ⭈⭈ ⭈⭈ default by an expert who has experience or knowledge
x m1 ⭈⭈⭈ xm j ⭈⭈⭈ xmn enough about materials and design of the component
under question. But if the design circumstance is un-
usually changed Žfor example, a sudden rise of the
where, A1 ,..., A m are the kinds of candidate materials price or new regulation for environment protection.,
and X 1 ,..., X n are the material properties or perfor- one may adjust s j at his option. With the weight
mance indices. Hence, x i j is the value or degree of the factors, the material properties matrix is reconstructed
j-th property or index X j for the i-th material A i . as:
2.4. Normalization
¨ i j s ␻ jU ri j Ž no sum on j.. Ž5.
The various material properties and performance
indices have different physical dimensions from each If the subjective weight s j is not assigned, ␻ jU s ␻ j .
other. In order to make a comparison between proper-
ties, the elements of the matrix are normalized as: 2.6. E¨ aluation of the separation measure and relation
closeness
m
r i j s x i jr Ý x i j Ž1.
is1
We apply a kind of decision making theory ᎏ TOP-
SIS ŽTechnique for Order Preference by Similarity to
Ideal Solution. ᎏ proposed by Yoon w8x, to rank candi-
where ri j is in the range of 0᎐1.
date materials. The basic idea of TOPSIS is that the
best decision should be made to be closest to the ideal
2.5. Determination of weight factor
and farthest from the non-ideal. In the material
properties matrix whose elements are normalized and
To prescribe the relative priority among the material
weighted according to Eq. Ž1. and Eq. Ž5., the element
properties and performance indices, a weight factor is
with the most preferred value Ži.e. the highest value in
given to each of them. The weight factors are evaluated
most except for costs. for the j-th material property or
using the concept of entropy proposed by Shannon and
performance index is defined as the ideal ¨ q j , and the
Weaver w10x. The entropy Ej of the normalized values
element with the least preferred value is defined as the
of a j-th material property or index is defined as
non-ideal ¨ yj . Hence, the matrices V
q
and V y which
follows: q y
consist of ¨ j and ¨ j , respectively, are expressed as the
m
equations:
Ej s yk Ý ri j log ri j Ž2.
min
¨i j < j g J . , Ž i ¨ i j < j g J U . < i s 1, . . . ,m
max
is1
Vqs ½Ž i 5
where k s 1rlog m. Ej is also in the range of 0᎐1. The s Ž ¨q y y.
1 , ⭈⭈⭈ ,¨ j , ⭈⭈⭈ ,¨ n
Ž6.
weight factor ␻ j for the j-th material property or index
is defined as:
min max
Vy ½ž ¨i j < j g J , /ž ¨ i j < j g J U < i s 1, ⭈⭈⭈ ,m
/ 5
1 y Ej i i
␻j s n . Ž3.
Ý Ž 1 y Ej . s Ž ¨y y y.
1 , ⭈⭈⭈ ,¨ j , ⭈⭈⭈ ,¨ n
js1

where J s  j < j for the properties or indices which are

If ri j for a property or index has wide scatter, that
yields a small value of Ej , which gives the large weight
factor in turn. If one wants to add the subjective weight
s j according to previous experience, particular con-
straints of design, and so on, the weight factor is
revised as:
regarded as the better as their values are the higher4 ,
J U s  j < j for the properties or indices related to price,
that is, the less, the better4 .
For the i-th material, the separation measures which
indicate distances from the ideal and the non-ideal, are
defined as:
202 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206

n
Sq
i s ( Ý Ž ¨ i j y ¨qj .
js1
2

Ž7.
n
Sy
i s ( Ý
js1
Ž ¨i j y ¨y
j
.2 ,

respectively. Finally, selection of material should be

made upon the separation measures, Sq i and Syi , i.e.
y
the ideal material has a maximum Si and minimum
Sq
i . For the purpose we introduce the relative closeness
Cqi defined as follows:

Cq y Ž q y.
i s Si r Si q Si . Ž8.

When Cq i is close to 1, the material is regarded as

ideal; and when Cq i is close to 0, the material is
regarded as non-ideal.

3. Materials selection software

Fig. 1 is a flow chart for materials selection. At the

initial stage, one should pick out all the material
properties related to given functional requirements.
Also, minimum constraints on materials under question
should be applied to screen a number of candidate
materials from all materials available in a database.
With the materials and the related properties one can
go through the procedure as mentioned above to reach
the final selection of a material. We have produced an
interactive program using ‘Visual Basic’ language em-
bedded in database software Microsoft EXCEL97 in
which all the data of materials and their properties
have been stored. A full list of the references and a
compilation of the data are given by Kang et al. w11x in
which some data of composite materials from various
references w12᎐16x have been supplemented recently.
4. Case study
We take, as a practical example, material selection
for a flywheel. A flywheel is a device to store kinetic
energy in automobiles, urban subway trains, mass tran-
sit buses, wind-power generator, and so on. Despite its
many advantages, relative poor energy storage and an
ever-present hazard of catastrophic failure limit its
applications. Therefore, the main requirements in fly-
wheel design are to store the maximum amount of
kinetic energy per unit mass and to ensure against
failure by fatigue or brittle fracture.
Lewis w17x has shown that the stored kinetic energy
per unit mass ŽUr M . for a thin flywheel is simply given
by:
Fig. 1. Flowchart for material selection.
U S ks
s Ž9.
M Ž1 y ␯ . ␳
where S is an appropriate failure strength, ␳ is the
density, and ␯ is Poisson’s ratio of the material. The
value of the constant k s depends upon the degree of
material anisotropy. Since the normal mode of opera-
tion of a flywheel is rotational, a cyclic stress is induced
by a fluctuating speed, and the relevant failure mode is
fatigue. Thus in Eq. Ž9. we put S s ␴ limit , the fatigue
limit of the material. Neglecting the effect of ␯ and k s ,
a higher value of ␴ limitr␳ gives the larger Ur M. That
is, the first performance index is ␴ limitr␳ . Waterman
and Ashby w6x have shown that the performance index
to minimize the weight of a rotating cylinder for a
given strength S is Sr␳ . If the failure mode is fatigue,
the performance index becomes ␴ limitr␳ . This implies
that the higher the value of ␴ limitr␳ , the lower the
weight for a given fatigue strength; alternatively the
higher the kinetic energy per unit mass of the flywheel.
When a crack is present in a flywheel, it may lead to
catastrophic failure. For a given crack length, the frac-
 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206 203

Table 2
Candidate materials for a flywheel and their properties a

Materials ␴limit KIC Density Pricermass Fragmentability

ŽMPa. ŽMParm1r2 . Ž103 kgrm3 . ŽUS$rton.

300M 800 68.9 8 4200 Poor Ž3.

2024-T3 140 38 2.82 2100 Poor Ž3.
7050-T73651 220 35.4 2.82 2100 Poor Ž3.
Ti-6Al-4V 515 123 4.73 10 500 Poor Ž3.
E glass᎐epoxy FRP 140 20 2 2735 Excellent Ž9.
S glass᎐epoxy FRP 330 50 2 4095 Excellent Ž9.
Carbon᎐epoxy FRP 700 35 1.59 35 470 Fairly good Ž7.
Kevlar 29-epoxy FRP 340 40 1.4 11 000 Fairly good Ž7.
Kevlar 49-epoxy FRP 900 50 1.46 25 000 Fairly good Ž7.
Boron᎐epoxy FRP 1000 46 2 315 000 Good Ž5.
a
The numbers in parentheses are quantified values.

ture stress scales with the fracture toughness of the
material K IC . Thus, upon substituting K IC for S in Eq.
Ž9., a second performance index K IC r␳ is obtained. A
third important requirement is to minimize the cost of
the material, manufacturing and fabrication. The latter
should be taken into account in design but it is not
considered in this paper. Thus the third index is the
material price per weight. The fourth requirement is
fragmentability. If a flywheel breaks into small pieces
at final failure, the hazard should be much reduced.
The fragmentability is an important property for safety.
The candidate materials are simply screened on the
basis of working temperature Tw , that is, the constraint
is Tw G 100⬚C. Most materials available in the database
of Kang et al. w11x survive except for thermoplastic
polymers. As the final candidates we chose 10 materials
comprising four metals and six unidirectional fiber-re-
inforced-epoxy composites. Hereafter the materials se-
lection procedure is demonstrated only for the 10 ma-
terials. The properties of the materials are listed in
Table 2 where ␴ limit and K IC of composites are for
loading parallel to the fiber direction. The frag-
mentability of the composites is determined on basis of
the shear bond strength of fiber-to-matrix, that is, the
higher bond strength is regarded to give the worse
fragmentability, while the fragmentability of the metals
is assumed poor. As mentioned above, we use the
bi-polar method w9x to quantitatively grade the frag-
mentability of the materials. Because of lack of recent
information, most of the material price refers to 1980
w18x, and the rest are assumed in comparison with the
recent price.
The values of the four material properties and per-
formance indexes chosen above are listed in Table 3.
Also the values of ri j normalized by Eq. Ž1. are listed.
The entropy Ej and the weight factor ␻ j are calcu-
lated according to Eq. Ž2. and Eq. Ž3., respectively.
Four cases of the subjective weight s j are considered.
In case 1, ␴ limitr␳ is most weighted Ž s1 s 0.4., and
K IC r␳ , price per unit mass and the fragmentability
follows Ž s2 s 0.3, s3 s 0.2, s4 s 0.1.. In cases 2 and 3,
K IC r␳ and price per unit mass are most weighted,
respectively. In case 4, ␴ limitr␳ and the fragmentability
are most weighted equally Ž s1 s s4 s 0.3., while in cases
1, 2 and 3 the fragmentability is least weighted Ž s4 s 0.1.
because the possibility of catastrophic failure is as-
sumed to be minimal. Ej , ␻ j , s j and the revised weight
factor ␻ jU are listed in Table 4. Because the third
performance index Žprice per unit mass. has the largest
scatter, its objective weight factor ␻ 3 is much larger

Table 3
Material properties and performance indexesrthe values normalized by Eq. Ž1. for candidate materials for a flywheel

Material Material properties or performance indices

␴limitr␳ KIC r␳ Pricermass Fragmentability

300M 100r0.042175 8.6125r0.042327 4200r0.010189 3r0.053571

2024-T3 49.6454r0.020938 13.4752r0.066225 2100r0.005095 3r0.053571
7050-T73651 78.0142r0.032902 12.5532r0.061694 2400r0.005095 3r0.053571
Ti-6Al-4V 108.8795r0.04592 26.0042r0.1278 10500r0.025473 3r0.053571
E glass᎐epoxy FRP 70r0.029522 10r0.049146 2735r0.006635 9r0.160714
S glass᎐epoxy FRP 165r0.069588 25r0.122865 4095r0.009934 9r0.160714
Carbon᎐epoxy FRP 440.2516r0.185675 22.0126r0.108183 35470r0.08605 7r0.125
Kevlar 29-epoxy FRP 242.8571r0.102424 28.5714r0.140417 11000r0.026686 7r0.125
Kevlar 49-epoxy FRP 616.4384r0.259981 34.2466r0.168308 25000r0.06065 7r0.125
Boron᎐epoxy FRP 500r0.210874 23r0.113036 315000r0.764192 5r0.089286
204 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206

Table 4
Entropy and weight factors about each material properties or performance index

Calculation of Material properties or performance indices

weighting factor ␴limitr␳ KIC r␳ Pricermass Fragmentability

Ej Žentropy. 0.860865 0.962692 0.415348 0.959907

␻j Žobjective weight factor. 0.173661 0.046566 0.729731 0.050042

sj Case 1 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1

Žsubject Case 2 0.3 0.4 0.2 0.1
weight. Case 3 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.
Case 4 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.3

U
␻j Case 1 0.296369 0.059602 0.622679 0.021350
Žmodified Case 2 0.235021 0.084026 0.658379 0.022574
weight factor. Case 3 0.100499 0.040422 0.844600 0.014480
Case 4 0.234286 0.041882 0.656321 0.067511

than others. As the result, even in the cases where the
subjective weight s3 is small, the revised weight factor
␻ U3 is still the largest. The normalized values ri j are
weighted by ␻ jU according to Eq. Ž5. to give ¨ i j . Then
the ideal ¨ q j and the non-ideal ¨ yj for each material
property or performance index is obtained by Eq. Ž6..
Eq. Ž7. and Eq. Ž8. give the separation measures Sq i ,
Syi and the relative closeness Cq i for each material,
the values of which are listed in Table 5.
We rank the candidate materials on the basis of Cq i .
In both cases 1 and 2 for which the subjective weight s j
is greatest for ␴ limitr␳ and K ICr␳ , respectively, Kevlar
49-epoxy FRP is the best, and then Kevlar 29-epoxy
FRP and S glass᎐epoxy FRP follow. Fig. 2 shows a
multiple thin ring flywheel of Garrett Air Research
which is described as ‘ . . . the most successful design’ by
Lewis w17x. The flywheel consists of a Kevlar 49-epoxy
FRP outside ring, a Kevlar 29-epoxy FRP interior ring
and an S glass᎐epoxy FRP inside ring. It is somewhat
fortuitous that the sequence coincides with the ranking
of the materials selected in cases 1 and 2. Probably the
design is a result of long research and experience. Here
we can understand that the materials of the design
were chosen with the strength being most weighted and
then the best material is utilized for the most heavily
loaded outside ring.
In both cases 3 and 4 for which the subjective weight
s j of price per unit mass and fragmentability is given

Table 5
Separation measures and relative closeness of each candidate material for four cases a

Material Separation measurerrelative closeness

Separation measure Ž Siqr Siy . Relative closeness Ž Ciq .
Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 1 Case 2 Case 3 Case 4

300M 0.065104r 0.052435r 0.022935r 0.017222r 0.878230 0.904468 0.965239 0.973747

0.469544 0.496445 0.636834 0.638803 Ž5. Ž4. Ž2. Ž3.
2024-T3 0.071143r 0.056883r 0.024425r 0.021661r 0.869179 0.897814 0.963302 0.967366
0.472676 0.499778 0.641134 0.642106 Ž9. Ž8. Ž5. Ž7.
7050-T73651 0.067637r 0.054169 0.023276r 0.018965r 0.874821 0.902214 0.964967 0.971313
0.472688 0.499784 0.641135 0.642124 Ž7. Ž6. Ž3. Ž4.
Ti-6Al-4V 0.064783r 0.052234r 0.027643r 0.019853r 0.876569 0.903033 0.957575 0.969394
0.460072 0.486446 0.623936 0.628794 Ž6. Ž5. Ž7. Ž5.
E glass᎐epoxy FRP 0.068676r 0.05509r 0.023692r 0.021546r 0.872917 0.900535 0.964294 0.967489
0.471727 0.498770 0.639835 0.641179 Ž8. Ž7. Ž4. Ž6.
S glass᎐epoxy FRP 0.056572r 0.045022r 0.019652r 0.013297r 0.892548 0.916902 0.970076 0.979620
0.469911 0.496771 0.637075 0.639163 Ž3. Ž3. Ž1. Ž1.
Carbon᎐epoxy FRP 0.055132r 0.056320r 0.068827r 0.055376r 0.885197 0.888365 0.892765 0.914259
0.425098 0.448187 0.573005 0.590469 Ž4. Ž9. Ž9. Ž9.
Kevlar 29-epoxy FRP 0.048626r 0.039741r 0.024183r 0.014741r 0.904379 0.92441 0.962631 0.977078
0.459903 0.486009 0.622965 0.623364 Ž2. Ž2. Ž6. Ž2.
Kevlar 49-epoxy FRP 0.034602r 0.036585r 0.046925r 0.050077r 0.927678 0.927309 0.926868 0.923968
0.443838 0.466715 0.594719 0.608550 Ž1. Ž1. Ž8. Ž8.
Boron᎐epoxy FRP 0.472912r 0.499931r 0.641157r 0.497815r 0.106644 0.082646 0.029234 0.233415
0.056454 0.045040 0.019308 0.151578 Ž10. Ž10. Ž10. Ž10.
a
The numbers in parentheses are the relative rank.
 D. Jee, K. Kang r Materials and Design 21 (2000) 199᎐206
Fig. 2. Multiple thin ring flywheel of Garrett Air Research w17x.
the most, respectively, S glass᎐epoxy FRP is evaluated
as the best. Also, 300M and 7050-T73651 are ranked
high. 300M is a highly refined Ni᎐Cr᎐Mo alloy steel
Žvacuum-arc melted, silicon-modified 4340 steel. whose
fatigue strength ␴ limit and fracture toughness K IC are
superior but its density is high. 7050-T73651 is an
aircraft alloy whose fatigue strength ␴ limit is especially
high among aluminum alloys and also the price per
unit mass is the least of the 10 candidate materials.
Both the metals can be recommended for cases where
cost or machinability is important.
5. Concluding discussion
In the procedure of material selection, knowledge of
multi-disciplines is needed. For a complex system which
are composed of many parts Žfor example, a passenger
car is composed of approx. 15 000 parts. no one can
provide all of the information enough to select the
optimum material for each part. As the time given to
design a new product is getting shorter, a CAE ŽCom-
puter Aided Engineering. tool to help a design engi-
neer with material selection is needed. The procedure
should be objective so as to minimize personal bias and
it should be able to be coded into the software of
‘expert system’. In this work, we have utilized the
theories of decision-making. One of them is the con-
cept of entropy; to evaluate the weight factor for each
material property or performance index and the other
is TOPIS; to rank the candidate materials, for which
several requirements are considered simultaneously.
205
As an example, the procedure to select the optimal
material for a flywheel has been developed. As a result
we can grade the candidate materials for given subjec-
tive weight. In the cases for which fatigue strength or
fracture toughness is weighted, the chosen materials
coincide with the ones utilized for a commercial fly-
wheel in support of our approach.
In this procedure outlined one can adjust the relative
priority among design requirements using the subjec-
tive weight. Also if one does not have adequate experi-
ence and knowledge to decide the subjective weight,
the objective weight factors which are evaluated
through the rational procedure can be used as defaults.
However, in order to be a more useful design tool,
the procedure to systematically map requirements to
performance index or material properties must be de-
veloped. The axiomatic approach proposed by Suh w19x
seems to be promising. Also the compatibility of the
component under question with associated components
must be taken into account.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Professor N.A. Fleck of
Cambridge University for valuable discussion and cor-
rections of the English.
References
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