Knowledge engineering and CAD

The technology of Computer Aided Design (CAD) has rapidly been changing the processes of machine design, especially in detail and production design. Conventional CAD systems are necessary in production design where precise geometrical data are indispensable, but we can point out some problems of those systems from a point of view of the total machine design process. Though the main aim of introducing CAD systems is to increase designers' creativities, it is doubtful whether designers are really supported by such CAD systems. We think that knowledge engineering is useful to improve such situations. In this paper, we discuss these problems and we study the feasibilities of future CAD systems that can really help designers very intelligently and efficiently. We also show some results of our experimental systems applying knowledge engineering.