Enabling Technologies for Unified Life-Cycle Engineering of Structural Components

Unified life-cycle engineering (ULCE), or concurrent engineering, is a design engineering environment in which computer-aided design technology is used to assess and improve the quality of a product?not only during the active design phases but throughout its entire life cycle. This is achieved by integrating and optimizing the design attributes for producibility and supportability as well as for performance, operability, cost, and schedule. This book addresses ULCE approaches to design, manufacture, and application of structural components?especially for advanced military systems. Conclusions and recommendations to support the development of an effective ULCE design engineering environment are presented.