Knowledge-base design for heat exchanger selection

A process engineer today is faced with a large and expanding set of heat transfer devices capable of meeting any specific heat transfer application. The Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow Service (HTFS) has begun a project to develop an expert system to assist the engineer in the art of heat exchanger selection and design. This paper describes the knowledge engineering phase of this project. This includes the creation of a structure for the knowledge and the recasting of the knowledge collected from the various sources, such as interviews with experts, into this structure. This knowledge representation and its implications for the inferencing scheme and the user interface are discussed.