A model-based system for the classification and analysis of materials
by A.C. Capelo, L. Ironi, S. Tentoni
in Intelligent Systems Engineering , 2, 3 (1993), 145-158.
ABSTRACT
To build model-based systems capable of emulating the
scientist's or engineer's way of reasoning about a given physical domain
requires methods for automating the formulation or selection of a model, which
adequately captures the knowledge needed for solving a specific problem. To
find and exploit such models requires the use and integration of different
kinds of knowledge, formalisms and methods. This paper describes a system
which aims at reasoning automatically about visco-elastic materials from a
mechanical point of view. It integrates both domain specific and domain
independent knowledge in order to classify and analyse the mechanical behaviours
of materials. The classification task is grounded on qualitative knowledge
while the analysis of a material is performed at a quantitative level and is
grounded on numerical simulation. The key ideas of our work are: to generate
automatically a library of models of ideal materials and their corresponding
qualitative responses to standard experiments, to classify an actual material
by selecting within the library a class of models whose simulated qualitative
behaviours to standard loads match the observed ones, to identify a quantitative
model of the material, and then to analyse the material by simulating its
behaviour upon any load. Each model in the library is automatically generated in
two different forms: at the lowest level, as a symbolic description
and then, at a mathematical level, as an ordinary differential equation. This
paper mainly concentrates on the methods and algorithms of model
generation
and of qualitative simulation.
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Liliana Ironi
June 25th, 1996