Qualitative and quantitative reasoning about thermodynamics
Gordon Skorstad, Ken Forbus · NASA STI Repository (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) · 1989
: One goal of qualitative physics is to capture the mental models of engineers and scientists. This paper shows how Qualitative Process theory can be used to express concepts of engineering thermodynamics. This encoding provides the means to integrate qualitative and quantitative knowledge for solving textbook thermodynamics problems. These ideas have been implemented in a program called SCHISM, which analyzes thermodynamic cycles, such as gas turbine plants and steam power plants. We describe its analysis of a sample textbook problem and discuss our plans for future work. 1 INTRODUCTION A goal of qualitative physics is to capture the tacit knowledge engineers use to organize and control knowledge gained through formal training. The initial motivation for qualitative physics was to set up and guide the solution of textbook motion problems [6]. Since then, research has mainly focused on purely qualitative reasoning [2], and significant progress has been made. We believe the time is ri...