A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR SYNTHESIS AND DESIGN OF TRANSMISSION TOWERS USING BLACKBOARD ARCHITECTURE

This paper describes the development of KASTLE - a knowledge-based system for synthesis and design of steel lattice self-supporting transmission towers. An expert designer basically relies on heuristics to choose parameters, such as base width, top-hamper width, type of bracings and sub-bracing pattern, for the tower configuration. This paper reports an attempt to integrate different types of knowledge-based systems using blackboard architecture. The knowledge system for configuration generation uses theorem proving, whereas in other knowledge-based systems, such as modelling and design heuristics, knowledge has been represented using IF-THEN rules. A sample synthesis and design of a 220 kV and 400 kV tangent tower is included. The system has been implemented on an IBM PC AT with MS-DOS. Prolog, Fortran, and C languages were used.