Development of expert system for airport pavement maintenance and rehabilitation

Abstract

Airport networks become one of the important assets in a country that constitute an enormous investment of public funds. For a good return in the investment, the networks need to be sustained and maintained in an adequate condition by employing the most cost effective method of maintenance and rehabilitation. This required not only financially but particularly in term of human resources and expertise in considering the decisions. Expert system is perhaps the most beneficial application for engineers and decision makers as it emulate human expertise and judgment through the use of symbolic logic and heuristics for determination of solution strategies and solutions. A protype development expert system in flexible airport pavemenrt maintenance and rehabilitation based on KAPPA-PC program package has been introduced in this study. The knowledge acquisition in developing the system shall consist of several modules that involved interviews with the domain expert and literature review from various textures. This expert system is developed to help in identifying the distress associated with airport pavements and structures, diagnosing the cause of deterioration, recommending the rehabilitation treatment, and providing information on costing. © EuroJournals Publishing, Inc. 2009.