RULE-BASED INFERENCE WITH FUZZY SET FOR STRUCTURAL DAMAGE ASSESSMENT.

To develop a computer-based damage assessment system for existing structures particularly subjected to earthquake excitation, a rational rule-based inference procedure is presented in the framework of expert systems. Dempster-Schafer probability, which seems to be superior to the Bayesian probability in expressing subjective uncertainty, is employed as a certainty measure. With the inference procedure, the certainty measure can propagate through a hierarchical inference network. Eventually, one can obtain the degree of the certainty of the hypotheses in the final goal, which will provide a reasonable answer for decision-making purposes.