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Polypropylene can also be tougher than ABS. To sum up, the toughest version of ABS still
does not reach the value of the toughest versions of the other three materials (Sancin et al.,
2010).
Fig. 2. Comparison of selected thermoplastics for fracture toughness and material price
In addition, the material price is an increasingly important parameter of the design process
and the diagram on Fig.2 shows that Polypropylene and high density Polyethylene could
have a lower price than ABS. It is necessary to explain that a higher price is sometimes
justified due to the acquisition of other design components of the product, such as the
possibility of smaller wall thickness, which leads to a reduction of the material needed for
production of the manufactured goods. On the other hand, the designer has to evaluate
numerous, and for the final product design crucial parameters within the development
process by considering all the materials available on the market, with the aim of achieving
optimal results, which can sometimes be an almost mission impossible. Younger
inexperienced design engineers have major difficulties regarding material selection, thus, in
order to overcome this barrier, the decision support advisory system for plastic product
design is proposed. This computer aid will offer recommendations and guidelines according
to the required parameters, shape or/and function of the product and could also be helpful
for experienced designers using the system as a verification tool.
6. Intelligent decision support system for designing with plastics
Product design is a major task and a complex process. Its progress does not depend on just
solving problems regarding known information like requested technical parameters,
standards, conditions and other constraints that could be resolved with one ultimate
solution but also on designers' experiences. Thus, the regular computer programs based on
a database search do not fulfil the requirements of the designer the decision support system
is a reasonable alternative.
Commonly, the decision support system model is executed in five phases, knowledge
acquisition, decision support system shell selection, knowledge base construction, reasoning
procedure definition, and development of a user interface. First and most time consuming
phase is knowledge acquisition as experts' cognition in the field of design and plastics has to
be preciously collected, adequately processed, well organized, and properly stored in the
knowledge base. Before creating the knowledge base of the system containing human
cognition, relations, and experiences, the decision support shell has to be selected. The
generally accepted definition is that decision support systems are information systems
supporting operational decision-making activities of a human decision maker. The decision
support systems shall then help decision makers to compile useful information from raw
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