A fuzzy expert system for durability assessment of bridge decks

An attempt is made to develop a knowledge-based expert system for assessing the durability of bridge decks. The present expert system has a feature that includes a fuzzy set manipulation system which can treat fuzzy sets in the process of data handling, rule representation and inference procedure. Using this system, it is possible to deal with various kinds of uncertainties and ambiguities involved inherently in the data, rules and inference processes in a unified and simple manner. Moreover, it is intended to introduce the concept of neural network for the automatic generation of fuzzy production rules. Several illustrative examples are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the system. >