An expert system for making durable concrete for chemical exposure

The development and the main features of an expert system for modeling the requirements of durable concrete in chemical exposure, called the Durable Concrete Advisor for Chemical Exposure (DCACE), are described. The system was developed to help improve the quality of concrete exposed to chemical environment by minimizing mistakes and deficiencies in selecting concrete constituents. Using Kappa-PC expert system shell, an object-oriented model was developed where the rule-based reasoning operates on or across objects. The American Concrete Institute manual of concrete practice was chosen as the main source of knowledge. Other textual sources were also consulted for knowledge acquisition. The major objectives of the research were acquisition and formalization of the relevant knowledge and building an expert system for making durable concrete for chemical exposure regarding sulfate attack, acid attack, seawater attack and carbonation. Similar to most expert systems, this system has explanation facilities, can be incrementally expanded, and has an easy to understand knowledge base. The performance of the system is demonstrated by an example session. The system is user-friendly and can be used as an educational tool.