Developing Case-Based Reasoning for Structural Design

The use of case-based reasoning as a process model of design involves the subtasks of recalling previously known designs from memory and adapting these design cases or subcases to fit the current design context. The development of this process model for a particular design domain proceeds in parallel with the development of a representation for the cases, the case memory organisation, and the design knowledge needed in addition to specific designs. The selection of a particular representational paradigm for these types of information, and the details of its use for a particular problem-solving domain, depend on the intended use of the information to be represented and the project information available, as well as the nature of the domain. In this paper we describe the development and implementation of four case-based design systems: CASECAD, CADSYN, WIN, and DEMEX. Each system is described in terms of the content, organisation, and source of case memory, and the implementation of case recall and case adaptation. A comparison of these systems considers the relative advantages and disadvantages of the implementations.