Terminological knowledge representation systems in a process engineering application

The aim of this project is to investigate what kind of terminological knowledge representation system (TKR-system) is able to support the modeling of huge chemical plants. In this highly complex modeling application, a TKR-system is the appropriate tool to serve as a user{database interface. What distinguishes TKR-systems from database systems is their ability to infer implicit knowledge from the knowledge explicitly stored in a knowledge base. TKR-systems diier among other aspects in the concept language that can be used for the representation of the application relevant knowledge. On the other hand, diierent kinds of knowledge from diierent applications ask for diierent concept languages. This process modeling application asks for the consideration of new concept languages and even for new constructors of these languages. To aggravate the situation, the amount of time and space needed by the reasoning services of a TKR-system increases with its expressive power. Hence the choice of an appropriate TKR-system for a given application is a diicult task and the results made while treating it are subject to this paper.