Intelligent Plant Development Library Environment

• US 20120072386A1
• Filed: 09/15/2011
• Published: 03/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/17/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fluor Technologies Corporation (Fluor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Fluor Technologies Corporation (Fluor Corporation)
• Inventors: Willems, Ivo, Pye, Michael, Paap, Onno
• Granted Patent: US 9,047,565 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 706/47
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2113/14 Pipes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 30/13 Architectural design, e.g. computer-aided architectural design [CAAD] related to design of buildings, bridges, landscapes, production plants or roads
• CPC Class Codes: G06N 5/04 Inference or reasoning models

Abstract

An intelligent plant development library environment is presented. Contemplated environments comprise an EPC knowledge system capable of incorporating know-how of one or more construction firms in the form of assembly objects. Assembly objects represent construction components (e.g., bolts, cable trays, pipes, processing units, deliverables, etc.) that can be incorporated into a plant design. Assembly objects are stored in an assembly database and include available contexts considered relevant to the assembly objects. An inference engine is utilized to derive a specified context related to a plant design from one or more design tools. The inference engine applies rule sets to infer which assembly objects to instantiate as construction objects. The inference engine can further configure the design tools to incorporate the instantiated construction objects into a plant construction project model. Example rule sets include forward chaining rules, backward chaining rules, case-based reasoning rules, inductive reasoning rules, or abductive reasoning rules.

Claims

1. An plant development knowledge system comprising:

an assembly database storing an assembly object having an available context, the assembly object representative of a plant construction component; and

an inference engine coupled with the assembly database and comprising a modifiable inference module having inference rules, and configured to;

instantiate a construction object from the assembly object according to the inference rules, a specified context, and the available context; and

configure an external tool to incorporate the instantiated construction object into a construction project model related to the specified context.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the modifiable inference module comprises a forward chaining rule set.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the specified context is derived from an initial condition definition.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the modifiable inference module comprises a backward chaining rules set.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the specified context is derived from an end condition definition.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the modifiable inference module comprises a case-based-reasoning rules set.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the specified context is derived from an initial condition and a final condition.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the modifiable inference module comprises a compliance rule set.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the inference engine is further configured to select the inference rules based on the specified context.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the specified context is derived from a specified ontology.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the instantiated construction object is bound to a second the instantiated construction object according to the specified ontology.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the available context is selected from a plurality of possible contexts of the assembly object according to the specified ontology.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the instantiated construction object comprises parameter values derived based on behavior rules of the assembly object, the specified context, and the inference rules.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the inference engine is configured to select the behavior rules as a function of at least one of the following:

the available context and a specified taxonomy.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the assembly object is stored according to a tool-agnostic neutral format.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising an assembly translator configured to convert the instantiated construction object from a common intermediary format to a tool format accepted by the external tool.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the assembly object comprises an assembly of other assembly objects.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the instantiated construction object comprises an assembly of other instantiated construction objects.