Graph Rewriting Techniques in Engineering Design

Abstract

Capturing human knowledge underlying the design and engineering of products has been among the main goals of computational engineering since its very beginning. Over the last decades, various approaches have been proposed to tackle this objective. Among the most promising approaches is the application of graph theory for representing product structures by defining nodes representing entities and edges representing relations among them. The concrete meaning of these structures ranges from geometry representations over hierarchical product breakdowns to functional descriptions and flows of information or resources. On top of these graph structures, graph rewriting techniques provide another powerful layer of technology. By enabling the formal definition of rules for transforming graph structures, they allow on the one hand side to formally capture the engineering development process. On the other hand, the assembly of rewriting rules into graph grammars allows for an exhaustive search of the solution space of the engineering problem at hand. In combination with search strategies, an automated optimization of the design under given constraints and objectives can be realized. The paper provides an overview of the current state-of-the-art in graph rewriting and its applications in engineering design, with a focus on the built environment. It concludes with a discussion of the progress achieved and the missing research gaps.

Automated translation from domain knowledge to software model: EXCEL2UML in the tunneling domain

“…Of particular relevance to our approach is that graph rewriting is well suited to depicting workflows in problem solving. Such graphs and the rules that operate on them have been shown to help in the formalization of domain knowledge (Kolbeck et al, 2022), which is exactly what we want to achieve.…”

“…What such languages have in common is a graph which carries information not only by means of labelling and connectivity, but also through the use of color and shape. Furthermore, a graph can represent not only entities and relationships (as in a database), but a procedural algorithm (Ilčík et al, 2015), a workflow, a transformation both in software modeling (Brambilla et al, 2017) and in engineering (Kolbeck et al, 2022), a state transition, and many more. Modelling requirements directly as graphs, or translating them to graphs, has the potential to reduce the amount of tacit assumptions present in NL formulations by explicitly identifying elements and relationships that are normally regarded as "intuition" or "expert knowledge".…”

Modulare Fußgängerbrücken aus seriell hergestellten Betonfertigteilen

“…Während andere Industriezweige schon seit vielen Jahrzehnten in die Automatisierung und Rationalisierung ihrer Produktionsanlagen investieren und in der Folge enorme Produktivitätssteigerungen verzeichnen konnten, ist die Baubranche nach wie vor in weiten Teilen handwerklich geprägt und kann nur ein geringes Produktivitätswachstum vorweisen [1]. Die Forschung beginnt dabei bei der Geometriegenerierung [4,5], der modularen Zerlegung [6][7][8][9][10] sowie der Entwicklung von modularen Baukastensystemen [11]. Die fertigungsbedingten Toleranzen der Module sowie ihrer Schnittstellen werden analysiert bzw.…”

A Multi-Agent System in Education Facility Design

“…On the other hand, various types of grammars, especially shape and graph grammars, are widely used in engineering and architectural design [24,25]. Therefore, certain types of grammars are combined with agent-based systems in order to obtain effective design tools [26].…”