The mechanical strength critic in CASE

Abstract: "This paper describes the mechanical strength critic in CASE (Computer Aided Simultaneous Engineering) (Rehg et al., 1988a; Regh et al., 1988b: Sapossnek et al., 1989). The mechanical strength critic is composed of two expert systems and several other supporting programs. The first expert system, the Model Generation (MG), generates a complete model for finite element analysis based on geometry, loading, boundary conditions, and performance criteria that are input by the designer. The second expert system draws the relevant results from the finite element analysis and checks for compliance with the performance specifications.If there are violations of the criteria, a set of recommendations for changes in the design are given by the Strength Critic expert system (SC) based on the assumptions of the behavior of the model made in MG and the results calculated in the analysis. The implementation of these changes are left to the designer, as he should also consider simultaneously other recommendations from other critics in the CASE project."