An integrated knowledge-based-expert system (KBES) for structural design in civil engineering could comprise of modules responsible for the preliminary design, structural analysis and detailed design. FORTRAN has long been extensively used for the structural analysis programs. On the other hand, PROLOG has emerged as an important language in Artificial Intelligence and has been successfully used for developing KBESs and, thus, becomes an obvious choice for writing systems for preliminary design, which are mainly based on heuristics and approximate analysis. Consequently, a need arises for an interface between FORTRAN and PROLOG in the development of such an integrated system. This paper briefly describes and compares two approaches to the implementation of such an interface in a rule-based system for the design of industrial buildings, INDEX. INDEX is currently under development at the University of Edinburgh. It has a blackboard architecture and comprises of ten knowledge modules. It is written in Edinburgh PROLOG and The Edinburgh PROLOG Blackboard Shell syntax. The relevant structural analysis programs are written in FORTRAN 77 and, thus, the need for the interface.

purchase the full-text of this paper (price £20)

go to the previous paper
go to the next paper
return to the table of contents
return to the book description
purchase this book (price £34 +P&P)