An expert system to design composting facilities for municipal solid waste
An expert system prototype, Compost Design Consultant (CDC), was developed to aid the preliminary design of composting facilities for municipal solid waste. The prototype development process for the CDC adopted a modular approach, which covered the main design tasks for the selected composting sy...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
2005
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| Online Access: | http://journalarticle.ukm.my/1430/ http://www.ukm.my/jkukm/index.php/jkukm |
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| Institution: | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia |
| Summary: | An expert system prototype, Compost Design Consultant (CDC), was developed to
aid the preliminary design of composting facilities for municipal solid waste. The
prototype development process for the CDC adopted a modular approach, which
covered the main design tasks for the selected composting system. These covered,' the
reception facilities, the materials handling equipment, the storage facilities, pretreatment
processes, feedstock conditioning, composting process control, posttreatment
processes, site requ,irements, operational considerations, market planning
and environmental considerations. An expert system shell, Kappa-pc (version 2.1),
was preferred as the building tool for the development of the prototype because of its
object-oriented approach that combines the two main knowledge representation
techniques, i.e. production rules and objects. It was also found to offer advantages
with respect to ease of manipulation, increased productivity and a true windowing
capability to run on personal computers. The main issues addressed in the expert
system development were the knowledge acquisition process and the building of the
prototype. The major steps involved were problem definition, implementation and
testing. The knowledge used in the system was acquired from many sources such as
textbooks, manuals and guidelines, journals, reports, case studies and domain experts.
In the CDC consultation process, the user can evaluate the most suitable composting
system for a particular site based on local conditions, and other design requirements
for the facility. A summary of the system's recommendations and additional
information on the Composting System Module was shown as an example to evaluate
the performance of CDC consultation process, which was considered satisfactory. The
primary , end-users of the CDC would be consulting engineers, waste management
engineers, recycling coordinators, municipal managers and decisions-makers, who
would use it as an aid to their decision making process |
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