11/12/2014 Authors: Changming Yang, Xiaoping Du
J. Mech. Des. 136(10), 101405 (2014) (8 pages) Paper No: MD-13-1534; 
doi: 10.1115/1.4028016 

Robust design makes product performance stable under variations and noises in the environment. So the product can work robustly even in harsh conditions. This work explores a way to measure the robustness of a product when it has multiple performance variables, such as strength, efficiency, and cost. These performance variables are dependent and oftentimes conflicting, meaning that improving one performance variable may make others worse. The robustness of the worst-case performance variable is used as an indicator of the robustness of the entire product. Analytical and numerical algorithms are developed to calculate the robustness. The work makes it easy to model the robust design optimization with multiple performance variables as the single-objective optimization, thereby increasing the effectiveness of the robustness design process.

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