摘要：The paper describes research aimed at developing a configuration system to support theconceptual design of mechanical fasteners. A prototype configuration system has been developedwhich allows designers to interactively configure fastener designs using geometric and functionalicons , freely without regard to physical constraints, with the aim of forming candidate *** designs are then passed to the qualitative modeller which uses qualrtative reasoningtechniques to evaluate the configuration. Supporting the above design procedure is a knowledgebase which contains object descriptions of fasteners and fastener features (given in terms ofgeometry, function, performance, material,installation). Design rules (expressing spatial andcasual relationships of fastener features),which are required during the evaluation of candidatefastener configurations, are also contained in the knowledge base.