An ongoing research effort is consolidating material and process knowledge in a critiquing system dealing with fuzzy criteria to aid designers in evaluating the incorporation of composite materials into their design. The extent of knowledge required to perform the task of evaluating composite processes and materials is often beyond the expertise of many design engineers as they lack understanding of the nature of composite material manufacturing. The system under development is known as the Composites Design and Manufacturing Critiquing System (CDMCS). The CDMCS critiques a submitted design through interaction with the user. An account of the strengths and weaknesses of the design is supplied to the user through the facilities. The current focus of the system is on process selection, but the system is generic so that other aspects of composite material manufacturing may be included. The system is implemented in Macintosh™ Common LISP. This article describes the features of the system that have been implemented. The system is currently being extended to cover more than the primary process component of the domain.
