Process equipment design using case-based reasoning

Abstract

The need for proper design of process equipment cannot be over emphasized in view of the vast human and technical involvement in every design activity. There is therefore the need to accomplish this design accurately and as fast as possible. The conventional approach adopted in the design process is to use mathematical models to obtain relevant design parameters. Accurate computation of the design parameters of new equipment is one of the main concerns of design engineers implementing different projects. Since some of features of an equipment cannot be expressed quantitatively and there are many qualitative features in data of the available process equipment. So, a method should be applied to use these data to estimate the desired and ideal output of design engineer. The case-based reasoning (CBR) method covers the qualitative data with regard to its nature. Using CBR method which is created based on the viewpoint of using previously solved problems in order to solve new similar problem save time and therefore speed of design is increased which is very important when considering the time required to estimate output which are design parameter in this case study. This research effort aims to use a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) approach for process equipment design and attempts to investigate its advantages over traditional design approach.