Development of a case-based reasoning prototype for cogeneration plant design

This paper deals with the design problem associated with natural gas cogeneration systems. Despite the task complexity, this design process is strongly based on knowledge that experts formally apply in their activities. Through an appropriate knowledge representation scheme this study demonstrates that the knowledge-based system (KBS) is an approach well-suited to cogeneration plant design. The research involves the use of rule-based expert systems (RBES) and case-based reasoning (CBR). In this paper, the basic concepts of the CBR technique and a CBR prototype for assistance in cogeneration plant design are presented. An RBES prototype for natural gas cogeneration system design previously developed by the authors is used to generate cases for the CBR prototype. A solution generated by the CBR prototype for a plant design requiring 4 MW of power and 0.7 kg/s of saturated steam at 0.9 MPa is presented. The application of CBR in cogeneration plant design represents an original and important contribution of this work.