Development of an integrated expert system for fluvial hydrodynamics

During recent decades, rapid developments in computer science and industry have been influencing every aspect of our social life. Computer Aided Design (CAD) techniques have a significant impact in engineering fields. For fluvial engineering fields, a large number of microcomputer-based programs are applied for hydrodynamics analyses during the project design stage. Recently, achievements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been applied in many fields. The application of expert system techniques is an attractive trend in modern design practice. It is believed that the synthetic utilization of CAD and AI techniques would become more attractive for engineers. Yet the studies on this topic are scarce. This paper describes the architecture and implementation of an integrated expert system that assists hydraulic engineers to solve the unsteady open channel flow in river networks. A methodology of combining numerical analysis software into an expert system is presented. The verification, validation, application, and future development of this system are also presented.