Designing Noise Barriers Using Expert System China

The expert system is a relatively new application of artificial intelligence technology that is beginning to emerge in the field of civil engineering. This new computer‐aided tool has the potential to significantly affect the way today's civil engineer assesses and solves complex problems. An expert system named CHINA (Computerized Highway Noise Analyst) has been developed that is capable of interacting with an existing FORTRAN model that aids an engineer in acoustically designing a highway noise barrier. CHINA executes the design model, interprets the results, and decides if those results are valid. If they are not, CHINA determines new input parameters and re‐executes the design model until a satisfactory design is obtained. Three actual highway noise abatement problems are examined in detail and the design solution from CHINA and a human expert are compared. The results of this comparison indicate that CHINA is capable of designing highway noise barriers that are at least equal, in terms of performance and cost, to those designed by a human expert. Thus, the concept of using expert systems as an expert advisor, or as a colleague to a human expert, is demonstrated to be feasible in this application.