Speed

• The Engineering Inference Engine is a super-fast forward chaining inference engine (written in C++) that specializes in propagating engineering quantities.
• Each input value generates a cascade of inferences. The engine calls the simplest and quickest functions first, while also respecting mathematical branches that change the solution procedure.
• Iterative solutions are automatically deduced and computational complexity is minimized by omitting inferences that do not affect the value(s) being solved for. This is important because needless repetition burns CPU time, especially in complex engineering designs where iterations can run 5 levels deep or more.

Scalability

• Model size is limited only by memory size.
• Data types are objects within the Engineering Inference Engine: they can be inherited and combined to make composite types. New data types are built from booleans, integers, doubles, complex doubles, vectors and matrices thereof, and quaternions. There are also character, string and struct types.
• The Engineering Inference Engine is generic: any problem that can be represented by known functions can be solved. Functions are black boxes; they are simply function handles with lists of parameters. The user manages the fundamental definition of the problem and decomposes it for the inference engine, and the engine then solves the problem by inferring which function handles to call in what sequence.

Reusability

• Models are object oriented. Objects and the sub-objects they are built from are addressable using dot notation e.g. Root.Sub.Coordinates.z.
• Two models are combined by simply joining the variables that both models have in common. Solutions then propagate through the joined model.
• A standardized engineering/physics ontology mirrors the categorizations used in mathematics and engineering courses taught in schools and universities. For example, there are objects representing the thermodynamics of a simple compressible substance, the state of a fluid at rest, in motion, and within a duct. Each builds upon the last, forming a highly compact and reusable body of knowledge.
• Knowledge held within the Engineering Inference Engine is inherently more compact and reusable than conventional code.