Features and Interoperability of Computer Aided Engineering Systems

Abstract

This work addresses CAx application challenges by investigating their complexity and exploring some initial conceptual solutions. It seems that, theoretically, extended feature technology offers the necessary flexibility in associating entities from different domains with different levels of granularity. A special field of application, i.e., chemical process engineering in oil and gas industry is studied to show the proposed informatics solution. Collaboration of engineers from different domains is discussed in depth due to the complexity and close associations among the activities. Interoperability is the major issue addressed. An innovated integration framework was proposed based on semantic modeling and unified feature technology, and designed to support semantics, patterns, association, and change propagation. Associations between semantic features were illustrated by an example of equipment design.