Systems Theory for the civil engineer Experience with knowledge acquisition for an engineering expert system

Issues involved in the knowledge acquisition process for engineering applications of expert systems are discussed, with reference to a project underway in the reservoir management domain. Since there are no well established guidelines for the crucial task of acquiring human problem solving expertise, the individual responsible forthis task must rely on his own judgement and suggestions found in the literature. Based on the experience from this project, success in the area of knowledge acquisition appears to require the incremental development of very problem specific engineering expert systems, which facilitates the knowledge acquisition process. Other important factors described include the domain knowledge of the knowledge engineer (the person responsible for knowledge acquisition), the interaction between the expert and the knowledge engineer, and the expectations for the expert systems.