Master's theses

Abstract: This study presents the development of a knowledge-based system prototype directed towards the design of hydraulic power units on industrial systems. The aim of this research is to systematize and make computationally available part of the knowledge about this specific domain, through an expert system created from rules defined for hydraulic power units design. Besides the potential operational application of the expert system, it is also proposed a tutoring application on the knowledge area of this system, discussing how a computer program can be developed for educational use and what are the relevant features of a system for this purpose. The creation of a knowledge-based system is made by the following stages: selection of a development tool, knowledge acquisition and representation, implementation, computational verification and validation. Those stages are shown through this text. The difficulties found on this expert system prototype development, mainly the knowledge acquisition of hydraulic power units design, are also discussed in details. Finally, this text presents the results of this MSc project: the organized HPU design systematization and the current stage of the expert system prototype development, which can select one of a four available HPUs and the class and working principle of the employed hydrostatic pump. In addition, the thesis shows inherent limitations on the difficulties found throughout its development and some possibilities of improvement and other uses, as suggestions for future researches, of an expert system directed towards hydraulic power units design.