Classified by what the asset does, not by what it is.
The Kerne Corpus is a reference body of failure-mode knowledge, structured around the six eternal functions every industrial asset performs. Each function is a durable classification axis — steam engine or microcontroller, they either transport, transform, extract, store, control, or sense. The implementing technology changes across centuries; the function does not.
Corpus content lives under the function that describes it. Within each function, scoping qualifiers narrow the domain (for transport: rail, road, maritime, air). Within each scope, versioned releases carry the content (v1, v1.1, v2). One corpus, structured: one tenant per function, many tenants per scope, many versions per tenant.
Derived from a structured analysis of the Top-100 global asset classes by cumulative production, converging through industrial clustering to six functions that persist across technology waves and environments (Earth, orbit, Mars). Each has a capital-weight profile and a growth trajectory.
| Function | Purpose | Capital weight | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Transport | Move mass or people from A to B | Dominant | Massive |
| Transform | Change material or energy state | Dominant | Steady |
| Extract | Pull resources from environment | Large | Moderate |
| Store | Hold mass, energy, or information | Medium | Slow |
| Control | Regulate physical processes | Dematerialising | HW → SW |
| Sense | Convert physical state to information | Small | Accelerating |
One corpus is live. Five functions have reserved namespaces but no content yet. Reservation is not a promise of content — it is an architectural commitment that when content arrives, it lives under the function that describes it.
| Path | Status | Content |
|---|---|---|
/corpus/transport/rail/v1/ |
Live | Open Rail Corpus — 297 failure modes, Sggmrs container wagon, BAV Fehlerkatalog |
/corpus/transport/road/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/transport/maritime/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/transport/air/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/transform/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/extract/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/store/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/control/ |
Reserved | — |
/corpus/sense/ |
Reserved | — |
Industrial taxonomy traditionally groups assets by shape (rotating vs. static; electrical vs. mechanical) or by sector (mining vs. rail vs. process). Both approaches silo knowledge: a pump in mining is studied separately from a pump on a rail wagon, even though the failure mechanisms — seal wear, impeller imbalance, cavitation — are identical. Function-first classification asserts that the transport function a pump performs is more durable than the sector it sits in, and places corpus content accordingly.
Rail is the first tenant of /corpus/transport/
because that is where the first 297 failure modes were structured
with real regulatory provenance. Other transport modes — road, maritime,
air — will join when content is built with the same discipline, not
before.