Knowledge engineering and its applications to nuclear technology

The application of knowledge engineering to nuclear technology is rapidly advancing over wide ranges. For the problems which have been solved so far by empirical laws and know-hows, the knowledge engineering offers new approach, and its potential is very large. In this report, this technology is explained about the various actual examples of application, and its future perspective is given. The reports of the research on the application of knowledge engineering presented to the Atomic Energy Society of Japan have increased very much. The fields of the object of application were initially abnormality diagnosis and operation guidance, but recently, alarm dealing, the planning of fuel exchange, the layout of machinery and equipment, the routing of pipings, the forecast of machinery and equipment life, maintenance planning and so on have been included. As the concrete examples of application, the description and analysis of the networks related to phenomena, the diagnosis of nuclear power plants, qualitative inference and the acquirement of the knowledge for diagnosis, the planning of fuel movement and others are described. The expression of knowledge and the mechanism of inference, and the problems of knowledge engineering hereafter are discussed. (Kako, I.)