An intelligent assistant for design and material engineers in the submarine cable industry

This paper describes an industrial application of case-based reasoning in engineering. The application involves an integration of case-based reasoning (CBR) retrieval techniques with a relational database. The database is specially designed as a repository of experiential knowledge and with the CBR application in mind such as to include qualitative search indices. The application is for an intelligent assistant for design and material engineers in the submarine cable industry. The system consists of three components; a material classifier and a database of experiential knowledge and a CBR system is used to retrieve similar past cases based on component descriptions. Work has shown that an uncommon retrieval technique, hierarchical searching, well represents several search indices and that this techniques aids the implementation of advanced techniques such as context sensitive weights. The system is currently undergoing user testing at the Alcatel Submarine Cables site in Greenwich. Plans are for wider testing and deployment over several sites internationally.

Intelligent design assistant (IDA): a case base reasoning system for material and design

This paper describes the approach to the modelling of experiential knowledge in an industrial application of Case-Based Reasoning (CBR). The CBR involves retrieval techniques in conjunction with a relational database. The database is especially designed as a repository of experiential knowledge, and includes qualitative search indices. The system is intended to help design engineers and material engineers in the submarine cable industry. It consists of three parts: a materials database; a database of experiential knowledge; and a CBR system used to retrieve similar past designs based upon component and material qualitative descriptions. The system is currently undergoing user testing at the Alcatel Submarine Networks site in Greenwich.

Utilising computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for the modelling of granular material in large-scale engineering processes

In this paper, the framework is described for the modelling of granular material by employing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This is achieved through the use and implementation in the continuum theory of constitutive relations, which are derived in a granular dynamics framework and parametrise particle interactions that occur at the micro-scale level. The simulation of a process often met in bulk solids handling industrial plants involving granular matter, (i.e. filling of a flat-bottomed bin with a binary material mixture through pneumatic conveying-emptying of the bin in core flow mode-pneumatic conveying of the material coming out of a the bin) is presented. The results of the presented simulation demonstrate the capability of the numerical model to represent successfully key granular processes (i.e. segregation/degradation), the prediction of which is of great importance in the process engineering industry.

Mathematical modelling of the behaviour of granular material in a computational fluid dynamics framework using micro-mechanical models

In this paper, a Computational Fluid Dynamics framework is presented for the modelling of key processes which involve granular material (i.e. segregation, degradation, caking). Appropriate physical models and sophisticated algorithms have been developed for the correct representation of the different material components in a granular mixture. The various processes, which arise from the micromechanical properties of the different mixture species can be obtained and parametrised in a DEM / experimental framework, thus enabling the continuum theory to correctly account for the micromechanical properties of a granular system. The present study establishes the link between the micromechanics and continuum theory and demonstrates the model capabilities in simulations of processes which are of great importance to the process engineering industry and involve granular materials in complex geometries.