Development of an Integrated Expert System Tool for Engineering Design and Applications in Structural Design

• Main Authors: Chang-Tien Chou, 周昌典
• Other Authors: San-Cheng Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 1993
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/78910309196965118387

博士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 土木工程研究所 === 81 === Expert systems have been applied in engineering discipline to solve ill-structured and symbolic problems. Most of the reported systems are developed on commercial building tools and function as independent consulting modules. However, features desirable for engineering design purposes, such as the flexibility of knowledge representation and the built-in numerical computation capability, are poor in these tools. Furthermore, mechanism for coupling the expert systems with conventional CAD programs are not provided. A rule-based expert system tool, ENGTOOL, is developed to overcome these shortcomings. In this paper, the components of typical expert system tools and features desirable for engineering design applications are first discussed. Topics about ENGTOOL include system requirements, knowledge representation, inference strategies, explanation facilities, and user/developer interface. A general integrated architecture between ENGTOOL and conventional programs such as CAD systems has been established. This consists of the following three types of integration mechanism: (a) Calling external routions from expert systems to perform numerical computation; (b) Calling expert systems from conventional programs for consultation; (c) Co-processing between conventional programs and expert systems. Finally, steel structure and RC structure design systems are developed to show the advantages of expressing design knowledge as collection of rules and the suitability of ENGTOOL as a tool for structural design expert systems.