Fan Tutorial 2 - Design System - Part 2
(9) Perform Trade-off's [Optional for tutorials]
In the design process, it is common to have multiple systems or components from various suppliers or vendors that perform the same role but with different specifications. To determine the most suitable option for our requirements, we conduct a trade-off analysis. There are different methods for this, including sensitivity analysis for the values and creating alternative containers. In this tutorial, we will use an alternative container to perform a trade-off analysis.
Creating an Alternative container
If you have multiple components that fulfil the required functionality, you can use the alternative container to compare each and see how it affects the whole system. For this tutorial, we assume that two different suppliers fit our required criteria for the speed controller. We can create two alternates and see how they affect the whole system. To create alternates,
Right-click on the
Speed_Controller
and selectConvert to Alternative Container
. Upon clicking, Valispace converts it to the alternative container where you can add multiple components.When you expand the alternative container, you have the
Speed_Controller
_1. You can double-click on the name and rename it toSpeed_Controller_variant_A.
Creating a new alternative container
Adding Alternates to the container
Now let’s try to add the second alternative of the speed controller to the container. You can add a new component or copy an existing component. For this tutorial, we will use the existing component and change the values of the valis.
Click on the
Speed_Controller
alternative container. On the right below corner, click on+
icon, select Copy an existing component,and add it as an alternative to this container.
Upon selecting this option, a new dialog box opens. In the drop-down menu, select the
Speed_Controller_variant_A
. Doing this, valispace creates a new alternateSpeed_Controller_variant_A1
Similar to previous steps, rename
Speed_Controller_variant_A1
toSpeed_Controller_variant_B
Hower over to
Speed_Controller_variant_B
and change the valis value of Mass = 10g and PowerConsumption to 0.2W
Creating a new alternate to the alternative container
Switching between alternates and performing trade-offs
You can switch between alternates and valispace automatically calculates the changes and updates the parent's values. Currently, we are using the alternate Speed_Controller_variant_A
in our calculations. Let's change it to variant B and see how it propagates throughout the model.

Switching between two alternates
With the mass and power consumption values, the user can make trade-offs between the two variants.
(10) Creating Budget Tables and Pie chart
We have a preliminary design breakdown of our system, and we would like to see the mass budgets in our Analysis document Project_Summary
that we created in our last tutorial. Let's add new blocks to our documentation.
Mass Budget Table
To create the mass budget table in our analysis document,
Select
Analysis Module
and select theProject_Summary
Scroll down and click
Click to add new block
Select the option
Tables
on the popup dialog box. Here, chooseBudget
.A new block is added to the document. Click on the
Add data to this table
. This opens a new dialog box where the user can select the valis they want to see the breakdown.In the
+ Add to vali
, selectFan.Mass
andclose
. This creates the budget table for our fan, which can be expanded as shown in the video below.
Creating a Mass budget table
Pie Chart for mass breakdown
Similar to the previous, we have to choose charts instead of tables.
Scroll down and click
Click to add new block
Select the option
Charts
(1)on the popup dialog box. Here, chooseBudget
(2).

Selecting charts and creating a pie chart of mass breakdown
A new block is added to the document. Click on the
Add data to this table
. This opens a new dialog box where the user can select the chart type and valis which they would like to see the breakdown.In the
+ Add to vali
, selectFan.Mass
andclose
.