Design and fabrication of tooling for net shape forming processes is a lengthy, complex and expensive undertaking. Research addresses feasibility of producing an expert system for use by product and process designers in evaluating and selecting production processes. These processes require detailed understanding and control of several interacting phenomena: metal flow, heat transfer, and friction, within a three dimensional structure--the tooling. Because of the complexity of these phenomena the design of the tooling is based in part on rules in the minds of experts, and impact on analytical models. The approach in this project is to embed both types of knowledge in a microcomputer, in a form usable by small manufacturing firms.
