Teaching engineering design using modular methods with virtual tools

Design practice for the successful design of engineering systems expects design engineers to
possess a vast subject knowledge of different engineering systems and acquire a set of design skills
which are typical of a senior engineer with many years of design experience. Further, design tradition
often requires the creation of a physical prototype to verify the design progress against the project
specifications and to perform early product acceptance testing.
As a senior design engineer at the Centre for Medical Radiation Physics, University of Wollongong,
the author was instrumental in improving the design process of complex systems by incorporating a
modular design methodology to reduce the complexity of the design through partitioning into functional
modules. Verification of the design was achieved through virtual mode testing of the design with virtual
tools such as Altium, Multisim, Solidworks and Ansys Simplorer.