Knowledge-based support for efficient design of engineering systems

This paper describes a knowledge-based designer support technique for efficient design of engineering systems, where the Multilevel Flow Modeling (MFM) and the Hybrid Phenomena Theory (HPT) are combined. The MFM is a methodology to model an engineering system from the standpoint of means and goals. The HPT is a method to model the relations between structure and behaviour. The MFM is extended to be able to represent systematically relations between goals/subgoals and abstracted information of structure. The extended MFM is applied to the design steps of 1) goal decomposition, 2) listing up design conditions and constraints, and 3) assigning functions to goals/subgoals. The HPT is applied as a main sub-system to check the behavior of a design. A component assignment sub-system is developed to provide a bridge between the MFM and the HPT. A simple example to design a central heating system by applying the proposed technique is demonstrated.