Masonry cladding, an expert system for distress diagnosis
Abstract
An expert system for masonry cladding failure diagnosis was developed. The system provides a heuristic procedure for diagnosing the most probable causes of cladding distresses and failure symptoms. Knowledge-bases, data-bases, and algorithmic analysis modules are interconnected to form two main modules, a descriptive module and a diagnostic module. The first allows for problem definition and description of related wall components and surrounding environment. The second module utilizes the collected information to generate the most probable cause of the observed symptoms. The system is considered to be an affordable, consistent, permanent and easy of transfer tool for the costly and time consuming process of cladding failure diagnosis. Although the developed prototype has some limitations, it designed to allow for future expansions.