Abstract: An automatic method is presented for conceptual design of mechanical devices based on reasoning of the design rules. After defining the design rules of problems, selecting the type of graphical carriers, and doing "adjacent", "overlap", "topological" logical calculations and doing "and", "or", "no" logical reasoning for the selected carrier according to the design rules, the system can generate conceptual design solutions automatically. The similarity analyzer enchased in per step of reasoning can efficiently avoid redundancy solutions to produce. Through programming of the design rules, the solution process of creative conceptual design of problems is convergent, and optimized conceptual solutions will be given out. The examples show that this method is fit for automatic conceptual design to complicated mechanical systems.

Key words: Automation, Creative design, Mechanical devices Conceptual design, aluminum honeycombs, cutting force, ultrasonic cutting