Quaestor - Expert Governed Parametric Model Assembling

The work presented in this thesis started from the observation that in conceptual design of ships many alternative solutions have to be considered. For this purpose, vital and time consuming sub-tasks performed are the knowledge acquisition, i.e. gathering and structuring the relevant knowledge and the numerical modelling of conceptual design aspects. My primary target was to gain understanding of the nature of numerical design knowledge and of the design modelling task and to develop a general purpose approach and tool, named QUAESTOR. The basic idea was simple enough, but making these ideas work and fulfil a need has been the primary challenge and drive for this work. This thesis attempts to summarise and formalise what has been done and to present the main aspects and ideas that evolved during this development. QUAESTOR is a knowledge-based system that assists the designer with knowledge and experience management, numerical (design) modelling and computations and is applied in the domain of conceptual ship design.