Most of engineering models describe technical artefacts in terms of their behaviours and functions. However, despite a number of standardisation efforts, no common understanding of these notions has been achieved. Recently, it has been argued that the use of tools developed in ontological engineering may bring about some progress towards this end.

In my paper I discuss one attempt along these lines: an ontological interpretation of the engineering notions of behaviour and function developed within the Functional Representation methodology.

The interpretation at stake aims to express these notions and their conceptual "environment" by means of DOLCE, one of the so-called upper-level formal ontologies. I will present the assumptions of this interpretation and a substantial sample of the formalisation.