An expert system for analysis of grain bin loads

• Main Author: Ni, Zhiping
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2007
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1993/1043

An expert system was developed as a design aid to assist in the design of grain storage bins. The expertise embodied in this expert system was extracted from Canadian Farm Building Code and ASAE EP433. This expert system, developed in Level5 Object expert system shell, consists of knowledge base, databases, and external programs. The knowledge base serves as overall integrator handling user interaction, accessing databases, passing parameters to external programs, and running plotter programs. Databases provide bin geometry and material properties. The external programs present the pressure distribution on screen. Based on the code selected by user, this system selects design parameters and calculates static pressures and dynamic pressures exerted by stored material, then reduces those pressures to loads on specific components of a grain bin. This expert system can provide bin designers with a rapid and accurate means of determining loads applied to individual bin components.