Prototype expert system in partially restrained steel connection design

The suitability of an expert system to design steel connections is investigated. The design is based on the American Institute of Steel Construction's Load and Resistance Factor Design manual. The prototype expert system designs welded seated beam connections and standard bolted framed connections.

The expert system shell used was PC Plus, a backward chaining system. Design knowledge is used in the rules; design tables and property tables are stored in database files for interaction with PC Plus.

A number of example connections are designed using CONDSIGN, the expert system developed in this dissertation. These designs were compared to similar designs performed by a commercially available expert system called CONXPRT; the two systems gave identical results.