KBMOSS - A PROCESS ENGINEERING MODELING SUPPORT SYSTEM

Modelling is one of the most important activities in process engineeri ng since it provides insight into the behaviour of the system being st udied. Modelling is also a complex activity as the formulation of appr opriate and consistent models requires help from experts and often res ults in a knowledge-intensive, time consuming and error-prone task. A knowledge-based modelling support system, KBMoSS, has been developed t o foster the exploration of the model space, maintain the model's evol ution, enhance the engineer's understanding of the model, and improve cooperation between modellers. Mathematical models can also be automat ically generated within this system. The model generation is based on the modelling approach developed by Vazquez-Roman (1992). Users can ei ther accept the generated model, modify it, or write their own models from scratch. The user interface was designed to allow the description , examination and manipulation of a chemical process with reference to its modelling aspects. It allows flexible navigation through the vari ous parts of the modelling structure and was implemented using the obj ect-oriented paradigm.