The Role of Mereotopology and SWRL Rules to Represent Joint Topology Information for Design Collaboration

This paper discusses the role of mereotopology and SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) to represent joint topology. Within the physical structure of engineered products, joints are inevitable because of the limitations of component geometries and the required engineering properties. While joints themselves may have similar geometrical configurations, the physical implications of the selected joining processes vary significantly. Mereotopology provides a formal region-based theory for parts and associated concepts. The mereotopologically defined joints topologies are implemented in SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Languages) to overcome the lack of universality of semantic definitions. The paper also presents the conversion rules to translate the mereotopological joint definitions to SWRL rules. These rules can be reasoned for software agents to understand the different joint topologies. This contribution is illustrated by using a real fixture assembly. Also, the remaining challenges to realize a semantic assembly joint design environment are discussed in this paper.Copyright © 2008 by ASME