Rule-based Verification of a Geometric Design using the Codex Framework

Abstract

The definition of requirements is an important step of the aircraft design process. Usually, experts of different domains are involved in this multi-disciplinary process. Hence, knowledge from the different domains has to be efficiently shared and integrated. Supporting this process is the aim of the Codex (COllaborative DEsign and eXploration) framework, which is a Knowledge-Based Engineering (KBE) system currently being developed at the German Aerospace center (DLR). The design process results in the aircraft geometry determination which can be challenging for some components, subsystems or even new designs. To support this engineering task, this paper presents the codex-geometry module for geometry modelling using semantic web technologies within the Codex KBE framework. User-defined rules are used to express geometric requirements and analysis functions, which are automatically executed in order to verify and evaluate a geometric design. The presented approach is demonstrated by the example use case of a conventional fuel system model including pipe systems and fuel pumps.