Design space reduction decisions made in set-based design use perceptions of feasibility to eliminate unfavorable design solutions from consideration. Perceptions are formed with incomplete information, leaving them susceptible to change if new and conflicting information is made available later in the design process. This paper considers how new information originating from newly sampled design points can alter perceptions of feasibility and introduces a probabilistic and an entropic strategy for quantifying the risk of prematurely eliminating potential design solutions. Emergent designs of automated set-based design simulations gauging this risk are evaluated against ones neglecting it for an analogous design problem. The Python-based simulations have different disciplines randomly explore their design spaces and generate reasonable space reduction propositions, and then they give a design manager the opportunity to check the fragility of reduced design spaces before finalizing any reductions. Gathered results indicate that both the probabilistic and entropic models are able to effectively delay design decisions and help disciplines maintain a higher diversity of design solutions while designer understanding is still growing. Both models effectively delay risky space reductions and encourage a more gradual reduction of design spaces compared to simulations not including fragility checks. Furthermore, as the entropic model takes a more holistic approach by working with the history of perceptions formed in a discipline's design space rather than just the newest perceptions, space remaining and diversity results show it slightly outperforming the probabilistic model.

This paper introduces a framework for analyzing distributed ship systems. The increase in interconnected and interdependent systems aboard modern naval vessels has significantly increased their complexity, making them more vulnerable to cascading failures and emergent behavior that arise only once the system is complete and in operation. There is a need for a systematic approach to describe and analyze distributed systems at the conceptual stage for naval vessels. Understanding the relationships between various aspects of these distributed systems is crucial for uninterrupted naval operations and vessel survivability. The framework introduced in this paper decomposes information about an individual system into three views: the physical, logical, and operational architectural representations. These representations describe the spatial and functional relationships of the system, together with their temporal behavior characteristics. This paper defines how these primary architectural representations are used to describe a system, the interrelations between the architectural blocks, and how those blocks fit together. A list of defined terms is presented, and a preliminary set of requirements for specific design tools to model these architectures is discussed. A practical application is introduced to illustrate how the framework can be used to describe the delivery of power to a high energy weapon.