A knowledge based approach towards design of mechanical systems and components for deep sea mining

Development of systems, machinery and components for deep sea mining from 2000-6000 meters depth in the ocean is a major technological challenge. The existing engineering system concepts have been demonstrated for short duration and have to be well evaluated for long term mining operations. The need for conceptualization of new systems has often been emphasized. A Knowledge Based Design Support System has been developed which can be used as a tool to aid a system designer in evaluating existing systems as well as conceive new systems and components. The architecture for evaluating available products and development of evolvable products, hybrid products and genetically modified products are presented. System synthesis using far and near vision fused with conventional methods are described. System variants can be evaluated using a fusion of Analytical Hierarchy Processes (AHP) and Altschullerian approaches.