Over the last decade expert systems have been applied in many different domains with varying degrees of success. Much has been learned about techniques for knowledge representation, inference engines and user interfaces. Another important factor in the success of an expert system is to take into consideration at the design stage the person for whom the final system is intended: expert, informed user or beginner.Southampton University and Marchwood Laboratories of CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board) have collaborated in recent years to produce an expert advisory system for selecting processes for welding. Apart from knowledge about the processes themselves, other factors have been taken into consideration such as equipment cost and availability, depreciation, running costs, the site, reject rate and quality level. This PC-based advisory system was designed for use by an informed but not necessarily expert welding engineer, for use in a laboratory, with an emphasis on the friendliness of the interface and flexibility of the system.Recent research work has concentrated on designing the software in an object-oriented way using an object-oriented language. This emphasis on encapsulation of data and relevant procedures has improved not only the efficiency of the system but also its overall design, meaning that future modifications or extensions can be incorporated with far greater ease. Current work includes the prototyping of tools, with the future aim of allowing a new user in a related area of engineering to use the tools to produce a similar expert system.
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A Pascal syntax directed screen editor, designed to run under PNX on an ICL Perq workstation is presented. The editor (Eliot) offers a structured approach to text editing and provides complete Pascal syntax checking. The exceptional graphic capabilities of the Perq are used to good effect in providing an efficient user interface by way of a hierarchy of pop-up menus. Using this interface, skeletal programs may be entered down to the assignment statement, or procedure call level without recourse to the keyboard, selections being made from menus using a graphics tablet and puck. Eliot encourages block structured programs with nested blocks by the use of a tree structured menu, representing the program structure. This allows for efficient movement around the program, again using the tablet and puck. Syntax checking is performed continually with errors reported and highlighted immediately for correction at will. For further error checking a variable scan option can be invoked which lists details of variable names which are not declared, or declared more than once, or declared and not used at all.
There are a very large number of processes available to the welding engineer who must decide which is most appropriate for a particular application. The factors taken into consideration include the cost of the weld, its failure rate, base metal, dimeasions, shape, location, required standard, weld joint preparation and so on. These complex parameters are interdependent and an advisory system for the process choice would be a most useful tool for the welding engineer.This paper traces the progress of research and development of such a tool, with the assistance of the Marchwood Engineering Laboratories of CEGB. The advisory expert system, WASPS, has been deliberately designed with a user-friendly interface to persuade the possibly computer-shy engineer of the validity of the advice together with the ease of running the program. The knowledge representation and inference engine of the expert system are classic in nature but the knowledge base is modular to facilitate the addition of further welding information.Finally the paper outlines the further research which is planned, including the design of an expert system shell for welding process selection and the design of an interface to a larger database.
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