Welfare Economics Applied to Design Engineering

Abstract

The paper concerns design engineering problems involving multiple criteria and, in particular, the development of a formal trade-off strategy that can be employed by designers to mutually satisfy conflicting criteria as best as possible. A Pareto-optimal exchange analysis technique is adapted from the theory of social welfare economics as the basis for a search methodology to identify good-quality compromise designs. The concepts are initially developed for the two-criteria design problem so that the main ideas can be given a simple geometric interpretation. Curve-fitting, equation-discovery and equation-solving software are employed along with welfare economics analysis to find competitive general equilibrium states corresponding to Pareto-optimal compromise designs of a flexural plate governed by conflicting weight and deflection criteria. The trade-off strategy is then extended to the design of a multi-storey building governed by three conflicting criteria concerning capital cost, operating cost and income revenue.