A SURVEY OF ARTIFACT-SIMULATION APPROACHES FROM THE PERSPEC- TIVE OF APPLICATION TO USE PROCESSES OF CONSUMER DURABLES

In this paper, approaches for artifact-behavior simu-lation are reviewed. The motivation behind the sur-vey is to explore available knowledge for the devel-opment of a new form of computer support for con-ceptual design to simulate use processes of consumer durables. The survey covers the simulation of arti-facts both as discrete systems and as continuous sys-tems. Simulation approaches are characterized based on the simulation models and reviewed based on cri-teria including the range of behaviors covered, ease of preparation and ease of interpretation. Based on the criteria, simulations based on 3D discretized models seem to have the most to offer, but they can-not provide a complete picture of artifact behavior and preparing models can be computation intensive. Options for improvement are briefly discussed, but the first next step will be to extend the knowledge exploration by surveying approaches for simulation that cover human behavior