Shell expert system for technological knowledge acquisition and access

Our studies on codification of knowledge about castings and techniques of their fabrication have led us to discover that it is possible to define the technological knowledge in open and flexible format. As a result the shell expert system for technological knowledge acquisition and access is proposed in this paper. The solution designed by us differs from the similar tools in that the whole knowledge has been written down in the form of relational databases. At the same time, the knowledge has been structured in the form of parameters in such a way that its restructuring and further development is possible without going into the structure of relations and by operating only in the extensional part of data model. Using new available sources, user may develop the knowledge base by himself. Theoretical assumptions and preliminary results of proposed system are also given. Our original idea is to design database structure in such way that any source of knowledge can be classified into many categories. Due to that idea as well as user-friendly interface the users can find any information in the way which is related to their needs and tooting.