Supporting design tasks through constraint satisfaction tools

Nowadays, different commercial tools are available to support engineers during optimization tasks in engineering design; however, many researches have been still studying tools and methods to improve the design process and overcome some limits related to configuration and design optimization. This paper proposes a methodological approach to highlight how a CSP analysis can support the first phase of an optimization analysis, to reduce the design space of solutions to be investigated and subsequently optimized. A test case shows a CSP study applied to steel structures for oil & gas applications.