Automatic Fire-Code Checking Using Expert-System Technology

A significant part of the engineering design process is devoted to checking the compliance with codes that result from legislation. The code-checking process requires deep knowledge of the regulations, awareness of changes, good understanding of the design process, and, most importantly, skillful personnel. Automatic intelligent fire-code checking is examined in this paper. A general approach is considered wherein engineering code requirements are encoded in a knowledge-based expert system that evaluates a design for overall conformance. The system, termed Fire-Code Analyzer (FCA), consists of a frame system, a rule system, and a set of geometric algorithms. The frame-based system is used to represent the various three-dimensional objects of an application model and their relations. The rule-based system includes a set of rules in the IF/THEN form, and its purpose is to provide all the necessary information to achieve compliance with codes. A number of geometric algorithms that elicit knowledge from the frame representation of the various building objects are discussed. The system identifies code violations and generates a report listing them.