Modelsaz: An Object-Oriented Computer-Aided Modeling Environment

Abstract

Modeling and simulation of processing plants are widely used in industry. Construction of a mathematical model for a plant is a time-consuming and error-prone task. In light of extensive advancements in computer science (both hardware and software), computers are becoming a necessary instrument in industrial activities. Many software tools for modeling, simulation and optimization of processing plants have been developed. In this paper, a new tool, called “Modelsaz”, for the modeling of physical-chemical-biological processing systems is introduced. This software can automatically generate mathematical models of various processing plants in Mathematica™ compatible format, based on conservation principle. Lumped systems are the basic elements of processing plants. The dynamic lumped models of the plants are based on transient mass and energy balances of these basic elements. “Modelsaz” has been developed under Microsoft-Windows 2000 operating system using Microsoft Visual C++6 programming environment. The software uses object-oriented features and has a user-friendly graphical interface in order to facilitate the construction, modification and reusability of a processing system models.

Keywords

• object-oriented modeling
• simulation
• physical topology
• species topology
• modelsaz