Design And Implementation Of Knowledge Base For Engineering Material Selection Based On Ontology

With the development of technology, the type and number of engineering material are very large, and new materials are still emerging. In addition, engineering materials are closely related to the manufacturing process. In the material selection process, design engineers need to consider a variety of factors, which depends on knowledge of the specific field. An open, shared, and extensible knowledge base for the selection of engineering materials is necessary, which can increase the intelligent level of the product material selection and improve the product design quality and efficiency.This paper studies and analyzes concepts and relations involved in the engineering materials selection. The current hot research, ontology based on Semantic Web technology, is analyzed and explored. The ontology technology can provide more powerful abilities than other knowledge modeling techniques in the formalism, openness and sharing. In this paper, the Semantic Web technology based on ontology is applied to the knowledge modeling for engineering materials selection. The engineering material selection knowledge representation model and the engineering material selection scheme based on ontology are proposed. The knowledge base includes a concept base of engineering material selection, a material selection rule base, and a material selection instance base. In the conceptual modeling for material selection knowledge, a lot of engineering material selection knowledge is analyzed and abstracted, and the related concepts are modeled to the conceptual ontology classes by using protege editor. The causal knowledge for material selection is represented as a set of knowledge rules coded with Semantic Web Rule Language(SWRL), which enhance the reasoning ability of the ontology knowledge base. On the summary of gear material selection knowledge, a set of cases for gear parts material selection knowledge are constructed, which are represented as the form of resource description framework(RDF). In the implementation for the knowledge base, a Java programming technology which uses SWRL API and OWL API is employed, which integrates the knowledge base layer, the inference layer, and the user interface layer, and builds a material selection knowledge system. The drools rule reasoning machine is employed to implement the ontology reasoning, and Semantic Query-Enhanced Web Rule Language (SQWRL) is employed to implement the material selection semantic queries. Finally, based on the established engineering material selection knowledge base, a gear material selection knowledge base system is constructed, which demonstrates the scalability of the engineering material selection knowledge base and realizes the material selection of gear products based on knowledge.The engineering material selection knowledge base based on ontology has been completed, and some gear material selection cases are tested. The completed works show that the material selection knowledge base constructed with the concept modeling technology based on ontology is open and effective. In the actual engineering application, the ontology technology can realize the sharing, reuse, and interoperability among different platforms and applications. The engineering material selection knowledge base based on ontology has a certain practical application value.