Chunking structural design knowledge as design prototypes

In order to develop knowledge based design systems it is necessary and important to develop a knowledge representation scheme which can be easily understood by both people and computers to fill the gap between human designers and design software. The concept of a design prototype is studied as one of the possible schemes for representing engineering design knowledge. The nature of engineering design, especially routine design is studied from the view point of design activities. Observations about the attributes of engineering design are used as the basis for developing the attribute semantics of a design prototype and the process model of prototype-based engineering design.;A computer system, PROBED (PROtotype Based Environment for Design), has been developed to test the application issues and the domain knowledge decomposition of the concept of prototype-based design. PROBED is an integrated engineering knowledge environment intended to benefit both the knowledge base developer and engineer. The object-oriented programming paradigm is adapted to represent design prototypes. A set of design-oriented operators is developed to help the designer use the knowledge represented as design prototypes. Preliminary structural design has been chosen as the application domain. Knowledge is distinguished as general knowledge and design knowledge. Design knowledge is decomposed according to levels of abstraction and a conceptual hierarchy. General knowledge is used to support the domain knowledge.;The concepts of design prototype and prototype-based design provide a basis for the domain knowledge decomposition and incremental development of a knowledge base. Knowledge represented as design prototypes can be easily understood by the designer and can provide him with real design assistance instead of an automated black box.