| The framework of a future software environment suitable for easy and quick construction and the modification of complex models of physical, chemical and biological systems has been developed to aid modelers in generating theoretical models based on mass and energy balances, and the basic principles of physics, chemistry and biology. Models in most of the existing commercial simulation tools, called flowsheeting programs, are not appropriate for various engineering tasks such as design, optimization and control. It is also very difficult to maintain and expand the existing model subroutines because the scope, structure, data and methods of individual programs are not transparent to the user. The user interfaces are very specific and in most instances not very user friendly. Hierarchical modular modeling methodology and object-oriented programming environments, which support the concepts of modularity, have been suggested to overcome these difficulties. To apply modular construction methods successfully in modeling, the system must be decomposed into subsystems whose model descriptions are in the proper modular form. If models are in the proper modular form, a new higher level model can be created by specifying how input and output ports of these models are to be connected to each other. Hence, this research is focused on identifying simple generic building blocks which are used as atomics in building complex hierarchical models. Generalized engineering representation of physical, chemical and biological systems has been obtained by defining generic building blocks. Basic model objects which correspond with the elements in the generalized engineering representation has been defined for computerized handling. A prototype implementation has been explored based on these ideas. The developed tool generates hierarchical model structure and information which is necessary to obtain fundamental mass and energy balance equations. The tool also has graphic facility to enhance man-machine communications. |
