Tribological Design Decisions Using Computerized Databases

Tribological knowledge is widely scattered and inconvenient of access for practicing engineers. This results in suboptimal utilization of tribological knowledge in many engineering decisions. As a remedy, ASME has embarked on a project to create a comprehensive tribology database system accessible by desktop computer. Since tribological design methodology is as important as hard data in generating optimal engineering decisions, an artificial intelligence (AI) based expert system is projected to serve as a methodology guide for the database user. This paper describes the content and structure concept of the tribology database system “entry module,” which is to comprise this expert system.