An Information System for Concurrent Reuse of Construction Data in Design

This paper describes a design system which supports the concurrent re-use of existing design information by means of an object-oriented database system. The system manages component versioning within a flexible design environment which is to be used by a design team working on an evolving, complex design. The domain of bridge design is used as a realistic focus for the work. A database of bridge designs has been built using data supplied by OVE ARUP and Partners with a database system that supports versioning. The basic database operations are then extended with the routines that support inter-designer communication. The database system with these extensions produces a design environment in which designers using partitioned design databases holding multiple design component versions, may concurrently develop new bridge designs. In addition, an expert system shell has been incorporated to deal with design evaluation processes. In this paper, the authors investigate themechanisms by which existing design versions may be represented, combined and edited to provide new designs.