Knowledge Base of Components and Connections for a CAD/CAM System

The purpose of this paper is to describe a CAD/CAM system conceived at first for the assembly of mechanical parts, which can be used in other areas, particularly in construction. We describe here the organization of the core of the system which is composed of a set of knowledge bases (technical bases which are related to an area and theoretical bases). We also show the different types of links existing among objects described in the bases. The use of different objects is made by a set of software tools based on IA and OOP concepts. A variety of tools is thus used: physical phenomenon simulation, 2D and 3D graph representation, finite element methods. At each level in the decomposition of the construction’s into subsets, specification constraints and successive refining of the knowledge restrict the range of solutions. By its modular aspect, this system allows to resolve all construction problems: structure, assembly, electricity...