Publishing and discovering knowledge services for design on UDDI

A precondition for internet-based collaborative design under an environment of distributed intelligent resources is that knowledge service providers can publish their own services globally, and knowledge service requesters can conveniently and accurately discover the units, which can provide matched services via the internet. The widely supported specification of Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI) gives a considerable capability to publish and discover services via the internet. The paper introduces a conceptual framework and proposes a lifecycle model of publishing and discovering the intelligent resource units and matched services with UDDI. A project for improving the bearing system design of a turbo-expander is presented as a case study. The project deals with changing the traditional sliding bearings with active magnetic bearings. Technologies of different areas are involved in design and many resource units in prominent universities in China join the collaborative activities. The publication of knowledge services and discovery of knowledge services are implemented on a private UDDI registry operated by the Internet-Based Collaborative Research Center on Modern Design and Manufacturing.