A COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE TO SUPPORT STRUCTURAL DESIGN TASKS

Besides the support for the generation of drawings and numerical stres s analysis computer-based design assistance requires the compatible mo delling of cognitive activities, i.e. aspects of designing as percepti on, recognition, imagination, conjecture, learning, planning and probl em-solving have to be mapped on appropriate software structures. For t he modelling of complex design tasks in structural engineering, combin ations of AI methods are necessary, since it cannot be expected to cov er all necessary cognitive aspects for all potential design tasks and domains with one single specific problem solving method or architectur e. Thus, general problem solver approaches for design tasks in structu ral engineering are not feasible. Instead of these, we introduce the l evel of cognitive architectures as a level on which experience in the implementation of knowledge-based design support for dedicated design tasks in structural engineering is generalizable. A prototype for the instantiation of such a software architecture is discussed. (C) 1998 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.