Virtual prototyping in polymer composites

Polymer composites have no standardized design procedure that guides a conscientious consideration of the multiple interactions among materials, manufacturing, and geometry. Intelligent decision support systems can enable such considerations during the critical conceptual design phase, where function and general structure are more significant than detailed geometry. This paper focuses on the knowledge representation and inference strategies in an intelligent decision support system for the conceptual design of polymer composite assemblies. The conceptualized function and structure of an assembly are represented in functional and configuration knowledge models. The specific domain application is retrofitting an existing metal assembly using polymer composite materials.