Virtualisation and automation of curved shell plates’ manufacturing plan design process for knowledge elicitation

This paper seeks to propose a brand new system for tacit knowledge elicitation in curved shell plates’ manufacturing process. By virtualising the manufacturing process and automatically suggesting manufacturing plans, the system would allow the knowledge-interrelated information more specific and understandable. Five areas are studied: 1) the extraction of a curved shell plate’s real shape from the point cloud measured by laser scanner; 2) the virtualisation of a curved shell plate’s wooden template; 3) the automatic suggestion of the manufacturing plan; 4) the virtualisation of the manufacturing environment; 5) the knowledge elicitation using ripple-down-rules based on the virtualised manufacturing environment and the evaluation result of the system’s suggested manufacturing plan. The system which integrates the proposed approaches above is evaluated by conducting a series of experiments in the shipyard. The tacit knowledge existent in the curved shell plate’s different situations during the manufacturing process are effectively elicited and represented.