A PROCESS MODEL FOR KNOWLEDGE-BASED CONCRETE BRIDGE DESIGN

Modeling the design process is an important step in knowledge-based system (KBS) development. This involves a thorough examination of the application domain, and an identification of the required artificial intelligence techniques for the development of KBS. This paper presents one such research programme, carried out in the domain of concrete road bridge design. KBSs for bridge design have been traditionally implemented as production rule systems. This paper argues that an integration of Al-based problem-solving techniques is necessary to address the various tasks of bridge design. It has been demonstrated that a design process model based on rule-based inference, synthesis and critical evaluation techniques is required to address the knowledge-intensive tasks of site selection, bridge layout planning, conceptual design and preliminary design of concrete road bridges, in an efficient manner.