Design knowledge representation and control for the structural design of ships

Our main concern is to identify the major issues related to representing and controlling design knowledge for large scale structures such as ships in routine parametric redesign. In our view, the most difficult problems can occur in the complexity of representing the design object and the need for a formal way of describing rules for classification that play the most important role in providing design expertise used for the structural design of ships. Hence, we present a complex object-based knowledge representation whose key feature is that the contents of all the knowledge-base, including the design process, are expressed only by objects and classes. Also, we devise an inference mechanism, called the CORE (complex object-based inference) mechanism, that is based on a hypothesis-object. To illustrate how the CORE mechanism works in a realistic domain, design systems for the deck structure and midship section of bulk cargo ships are implemented, and some running examples are presented.