An expert system towards solving ship auxiliary machinery troubleshooting: SHIPAMTSOLVER

This study proposes an expert system to aid shipboard personnel for solving ship auxiliary machinery troubleshootings. The developed expert system, called as SHIPAMTSOLVER, is structured based on PROLOG programming language. Principally, the SHIPAMTSOLVER suggests an optimum action code for the shipboard personnel with respect to the established rules on technical knowledge, system indicators, and previous failure experiences from the auxiliary machinery systems. As an illustrative case application, the SHIPAMTSOLVER is performed over a probable failure scenario in a ship refrigeration system. Utilization of the SHIPAMTSOLVER on board merchant ships ensures an effective decision aid on corrective actions while reducing the response time to failures especially in manoeuvring positions and voyages in critical waters.