Abstract
This paper describes the development of the Knowledge Based System (KBS) for material selection in
bumper beam design. The KBS is an expert system used to select the most suitable material by defining
constraint values into the system. The aim of this project is to select the most suitable material for an
automotive bumper beam. The selection method was based on the material selection requirements
such as mechanical properties, physical properties and economic value. The constraint values were
documented in the product design specification (PDS) derived from experimental work and design
calculation. The KBS will rank the materials in the form of a hierarchical graph for the best five of the
most suitable materials. The top ranking materials have the closest specification values to the user’s
defined value.
Keywords: Knowledge based system, material selection, bumper beam
Introduction
Computers science (CS) has become valuable system is one of the technology advantages
technology nowadays and has shown its available; by the combination of computers and
potential as a powerful tool for materials programming languages it can be used to solve
election. Some companies such as Furon, a problems easily, cheaply and with lower risk
manufacturer of structural bearings, has offered particularly in the material selection process
an expert system to its customers to select the compared to former approaches.
products, which best meet the customers Material selection process is an important
requirements including environmental consi- activity in product development process because
deration aspects and geometric compatibility. material plays an important role to ensure the
In the current demanding market, industry needs product meets the product requirements such as
a tool to overcome certain problems effectively lightweight, high specific strength, high specific
and rapidly. Therefore CS and Artificial Intelli- stiffness etc. In automotive research KBS has
gence (AI) communities have to turn this been developed to select material for engine
demand into opportunity. The KBS or expert components such as the piston, connecting
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Locked Bag 1200, Ayer Keroh,
75450, Melaka, Malaysia. E-mail: nizamsudin@utem.edu.my
*
Corresponding author
Suranaree J. Sci. Technol. 14(3):215-222
216 A Prototype of KBS for Material Selection in Bumper Beam Design
rod and piston ring (Sapuan et al., 2002). Sapuan frame-based system, which acts as a database
and Abdallah (1998) have developed an expert for material and contains all the required data
system for material selection of polymeric-based properties. Classification and reasoning of
composite material for an automotive pedal box material selection are carried out using a rule-
system. The system was developed to select a based system approach. The frame-based
suitable material for major elements in the pedal system of the KBS is very flexible, expressive
box system such as accelerator, clutch, brake and accessible for interpretation to the rest
pedal and mounting bracket. However most of of the system and it is used to describe the
the KBS were developed specifically only to a hierarchical relationship between the material
particular component. To increase the number and its attributes. Figure 1 and Figure 2 shows
of KBS available in automotive applications this the flow chart of the material selection process
project is aimed to develop a KBS for material and material selection hierarchy tree in the KBS
selection for an automotive bumper beam respectively.
design. In the next sections the factors, rules and
technique used for the KBS development will User Interface
be described.
User interface is an important part in the KBS
System Description system. It must be user-friendly for easy access
to the system. The user interface was intended
This system was developed based on heuristic to allow the designer to work quickly in the KBS
rules and the experience of the designer. It is a with a little familiarization. To interact with the
KBS the user just needs to use a mouse, menu, Td > Tmax : operation system is stop and go to
keyboard and a displayed window. The next material
displayed window will show either information Td < Tmax
from a knowledge-based or user option. Td = Tmax: the system continues to next constraint
The user interface was designed and
formulated using images such as buttons, text, The most important thing in this part is to
bitmaps and transcript. Figure 3 shows a user define the value of the constraints. The
interface of the KBS for material selection in constraints’ value is defined from the analysis
bumper beam design. or experiment result that has been done.
Figure 3. User interface of the KBS for material selection in bumper beam design
Suranaree J. Sci. Technol. Vol. 14 No. 3; July-September 2007 219
Figure 4. Graph of the Young Modulus versus Density (Ashby and Cebon, 1993a)
220 A Prototype of KBS for Material Selection in Bumper Beam Design
defined by the user in the system. smaller number of material candidates. From the
The material selection result in this top five ranks of material have been chosen 4,
system has been represented in Figure 5. In this which are aluminum alloys and could be the best
system, 5 types of materials have been selected material for automotive bumper beam.
to be the material candidates for the automotive During the past decade, aluminum alloy
bumper beam. If there are any changes of especially in 7xxx series has been used for
the defined constraint values, the material specific applications in the automotive industry,
candidates and the rankings will be varied such as hoods of the vehicles. Aluminum alloys
respectively. In this system if the user constraint were selected as the materials for the auto-
value cannot be found, the result will be motive bumper beam because they are a light-
presented as “NULL” in commands. weight material which is 40 - 60% lighter than
The result as shown in Figure 4 reveals steel. This may reduce vehicle weight and
that Norplex NP130HF Glass Fabric material is consequently reduce fuel consumption. The low
selected as the first rank, second is Aluminum elastic modulus of aluminum alloys is an asset
7178-T6; 7178-T651, third Aluminum 7178- when a structure is subjected to shock-loading
T76; 7178-T7651, fourth Aluminum 2048, and conditions. The aluminum alloys are able to
the last is Aluminum 7475-T7351. absorb energy three times higher than steel
The result has shown that the system before permanent damage occurs for an equal
has the capability to choose the best material moment of inertia and strength. Besides that
candidates for the automotive bumper beam. the aluminum alloys material has many
Norplex NP130HF Glass Fabric is the new advantages to make it suitable for automotive
material and the authors have yet found its application, such as:
application in the automotive industry since this Strong. The entire vehicle body can be
system was developed. The user may select aluminum.
another material from the top five-listed Durable. Good resistance to corrosion
material because this system intends to reduce and fatigue.
the huge number of material candidates to a Nontoxic.
Workable. It uses well-understood component with minimum effort and time. With
metal working processes. 100 materials and 6 rules for each material to
Recyclable. It is important to save select the best material in manual selection, it
energy and be a benefit to the environ- would take a longer time. By adopting the KBS
ment. as the material selection tool the process takes
Conductive. less time compared to the manual method. The
developed KBS supported the designer in
Conclusion selecting the best material for the bumper beam
component.
This project showed that the Knowledge-Based
System for material selection of the bumper References
beam is a new system that has been developed
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