Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T05:04:47.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bounded Rationality and Materials Selection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

V.S. Arunachalam  and
R. Bhaskar
Get access

Extract

The vulnerabilities inherent in choosing an innovative material for a design can make for technological catastrophe. The points of weakness are not dependent on the technical nature of the innovation, but instead are intrinsic to human problem-solving and decision-making. We present a computational approach for managing and containing this fallibility using ideas from cognitive science and artificial intelligence, in particular, understanding how the boundedly rational behavior of humans and organizations leads to specific kinds of errors that affect the choice and use of materials.

Materials choice in an industrial setting is often the result of a long chain or network of circumstances whose origins lie in many domains—from traditional engineering practice to the very latest innovation, from the commercial to the technical. In turn, every materials-selection decision has a long chain of consequences that are difficult to compute. This lengthy chain of consequences of a single decision gives rise to numerous points of error. What is particularly troublesome about these errors is not that they arise because of incomplete scientific engineering knowledge, but rather that they occur in spite of the fact that all (or at least, almost all) of the technically relevant information is available and sometimes even known to the technical personnel on the project. We will illustrate this approach by using a historical example of a major materials failure. Advances in database-systems design present an opportunity for integrating the ontology of material attributes with properties data. This may enable the design of more appropriate validation procedures required in proving a material for an artifact.

Type
Special Features
Information
MRS Bulletin , Volume 24 , Issue 10 , October 1999 , pp. 57 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Ashby, M.F., Materials Selection in Mechanical Design (Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar
2.ASM Metals Handbook, 8th ed. (American Society for Metals, Columbus, OH, 1973).Google Scholar
3.Aerospace Structural Metal Handbook, vols. I–III with revisions (Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, 1968).Google Scholar
4.Dieter, G.E., Engineering Design—A Materials and Processing Approach (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1991).Google Scholar
5.Simon, H.A., Models of Bounded Rationality, (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982).Google Scholar
6.Dawes, R.M., Rational Choice in an Uncertain World (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, CA, 1988).Google Scholar
7.Courtois, P.J., Decomposibility: Queuing and Other Computer System Applications (Academic Press, New York, 1977).Google Scholar
8.Buchanan, J.M., The Calculus of Consent (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1962).Google Scholar
9.Simon, H.A., Science 250 (1990) p. 1665.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10.van Lehn, K., Mind Bugs (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990).Google Scholar
11.Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Accidents to Comet C-ALYP on 10th January, 1954, and Comet G-ALYY on 8th April, 1954 (H.M. Stationery Office, London, 1955).Google Scholar
12.Aviation Week, Feb. 7, 1955, p. 28.Google Scholar
13.Murakami, Y., in Materials Science and Technology, vol. 8, edited by Matucha, K.H. (VCH Publishers, Weinheim, Germany, 1996) p. 246.Google Scholar
14.Inglis, C.E., Trans. Inst. Naval Architects, 55 (1913) p. 219.Google Scholar
15.Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident (U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1986).Google Scholar
16.Feynman, R.P., Physics Today 41 (2) (1988) p. 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
17.Vaughan, D., The Challenger Launch Decision (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1996).Google Scholar
18.Sargent, P.M., Subrahmanian, E., Downs, M., Greene, R., and Rishel, D., in Computerization and Netivorking of Materials Databases, vol. iii, STP 1140, edited by Barry, T.I. and Raynard, K.W. (American Society for Testing Materials, Philadelphia, 1992).Google Scholar
19.Westbrook, J.H. and Grattidge, W., in Computerization and Networking of Materials Databases, vol. ii, STP 1106, edited by Kaufman, J.G. and Glazman, J.S. (American Society for Testing Materials, Philadelphia, 1991).Google Scholar
20.Kim, W., ed., Modern Database Systems: The Object Model, Interoperability and Beyond (ACM Press, New York, 1995).Google Scholar