Object‐Oriented Model of Engineering Design Standards

Abstract

In almost all engineering fields, design standards are used to ensure an adequate level of safety and serviceability through the specification of performance requirements. The complexity of the information expressed within a standard makes standards usage prone to errors of omission and subject to multiple interpretations. There is a need for an automated environment in which standards can be developed, delivered, used, and modified. Previous models of engineering design standards have been developed with no underlying model of the objects to which the standard applies, and they have traditionally provided only one representational structure (such as decision tables, rules or predicates). These two limitations make existing standard modeling methods hard to use and maintain. This paper presents a modeling methodology for engineering design standards founded on the object‐oriented programming paradigm, and discusses the benefits obtained from using such an approach.