Automatic design for power systems.

An automatic design method for power systems to control electric loads required by customers and to ensure the power supply for the loads is described. This method features (I) an electric unit model including the possible connections among the electric units, (II) knowledge association networks to reduce maintenance cost of the knowledge base and to improve efficiency in selecting/specifying electric units, (III) a planning algorithm to find electric paths to control the electric loads and to ensure the power supply, and (IV) the reactive redesign of the automation of editing power systems. APEC3 (Advanced Plant Engineering Cycle tool version 3) is an automatic design tool for power systems that supports electrical engineering processes in developing single line diagrams, specification balance statements (design rationales), and item lists. When engineers modify unit specifications, APEC3 invokes the redesign function which automatically changes the specifications of all relevant units. To evaluate the effectiveness of the method, APEC3 was used in designing practical power systems of steel plants. The results showed that APEC3 can reduce the design time to one-eighth that of the usual design time. Therefore, the engineers can find optimal specifications of the power systems by evaluating a number of possibilities. © 2002 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 139(2): 36–45, 2002; DOI 10.1002/eej.1151 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]