Fundamental Study on Systematization of Mechanical Design and Manufacturing Knowledge

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

In this research project, in the first place, we proposed categorization of ontologics of design knowledge representation. The ontology of knowledge representation means the framework defining how the real world is captured and represented. Since there are various ways of representing mechanical design knowledge, there exist different ontologies of knowledge representation. In this research, we proposed some dimensions of categorization of ontologies, that are, abstraction (how a matter in the real world is mapped into a conceptual space), approximation (how an abstract representation is simplified as another abstract representation), domain (areas knowledge covers such as dynamics and electronics), granularity (grain size of entities), and region (boundary of the focused part of the real world).In the second place, we have built a tool for collecting physical features. A physical feature is a piece of knowledge representing a physical phenomena and associated attributes. Knowledge about physical features is used for helping the designer in conceptual design by linking functions and structures. SYSFUND (System for Functional Design) the system we have built, stores knowledge about physical features and thus allow the designer to build a conceptual model of the design object.Lastly, we have developed a computer environment for sharing design knowledge. The database of physical feature becomes very large to cover a wide area of design knowledge, and it is necessary to share such knowledge to efficiently accumulate the knowledge about design. In this project we used an object-oriented database to store collected knowledge and distribute it to personal databases.