Prototype Object‐Oriented System for Maintenance of Timber Trusses

Abstract

The Department of National Defense of Canada has over 200 timber hangars on Canadian Forces bases throughout the country. The roof of these structures is supported by standardized timber Warren trusses. These trusses, constructed during World War II, have deteriorated over the years and require repairs. To properly maintain these buildings, regular inspections by military engineers to assess their structural and service conditions are required. Remedial actions such as member replacement or reinforcement are based on the results of the inspection. A knowledge‐based system is being developed for the general maintenance of these timber buildings. The system, on completion, will have four subsystems related to the inspection/repair, analysis, upgrading, and data management of all timber trusses. This paper describes the design and development of a prototype object‐oriented system for the inspection, upgrading, and data management of timber trusses, which integrates the concepts of expert systems, object‐oriented programming, relational database, and graphics.