Models and methods of ontological data analysis in the problem of structural analysis and synthesis of technical decisions

The article explores the potential and demonstrates the effectiveness of using some models and methods of ontological data analysis in the problem of structural analysis and synthesis of technical decisions. Morphological analysis and synthesis of layout diagrams of artifacts are considered as a working methodology for structural design. A set-theoretic model of the morphological decision space is constructed for the classical version of the methodology. The model includes the functional subsystems of the designed artifact, implementation options for these subsystems, and potential technical decisions themselves. Moreover, in contrast to existing versions of such formalization, the emphasis is on the description of binary relationships between the entities of the knowledge domain of morphological analysis. It is proposed to describe the incompatibility of implementation options for a single functional subsystem of a designed artifact and the restricted compatibility of implementation options for various functional subsystems within the framework of a single model, known in ontological engineering and, in particular in ontological data analysis as “existence constraints”. Analysis of one of the regularities inherent in this model made it possible to strictly substantiate the approach common in structural design to describing the restricted compatibility of implementation options for various functional subsystems in the form of prohibitions. The advantages of using existence constraints to describe the morphological decision space are shown, and the frame of a formal ontology for the knowledge domain of morphological analysis is constructed. The structural synthesis of a technical decision is compared with the method of semantic identification of an object, developed within the framework of ontological data analysis for processing incomplete and inconsistent empirical information about the results of measuring object properties. A conclusion is made about the suitability of the latter for solving the problem of structural synthesis when correcting the concept of a “normal” subset of properties and information about the costs and/or benefits of including each individual implementation option for the functional subsystems of the designed artifact.