A Study on the Integration of Design Object Models Using Qualitative Physics

Abstract

Generating and maintaining models of the design object is one of the desired features of intelligent CAD systems. To use a central model that represents the relationships among models of different aspects enables a modeling system to explicitly represent knowledge about physical phenomena. We call this central model in the model-based integration metamodel. In this study, a metamodel is represented in the framework of qualitative physics, among all, qualitative process theory. Reasoning about possible behaviors of the design object relates physical phenomena represented in different aspect models. The use of the metamodel is illustrated by an example of reasoning about an electromagnetic motor. Reasoning about relationships among quantitative models is also discussed through an example of finite element mesh generation.