AN INTERACTIVE DYNAMIC FLOWSHEET SIMULATION PROGRAM

A general purpose interactive dynamic flowsheet simulation package, IDFP, has been developed. The prototype software consists of FORTRAN V routines for: (1) drawing a chemical process flowsheet; (2) accepting process equipment and stream parameters; (3) simulating the dynamic behavior of the process; (4) printing the computed simulation result for the process; (5) plotting the results in graphical perspectives; (6) saving both the process information and graphical databases on disk storage; (7) producing hard copies of the flowsheet and graphical output.; Some distinct features of this package are listed below: (1) It is the first system to accept a user-specified flowsheet interactively, and construct a mathematical model from the flowsheet. (2) It combines computer graphics and interactive computing technologies with chemical engineering principles to simulate the operation of a realistic process. (3) It includes distributed equipment units, such as a plug flow tank reactor (PFTR) and double-pipe heat exchanger, which give rise to partial differential equations (PDEs). (4) It provides visual displays of the process flowsheet and the simulation results. (5) It provides an implicit integration algorithm for stiff systems.; The program is designed to operate from TEKTRONIC 4010 compatible graphics terminals functioning as remote time-sharing devices on the Lehigh University's CYBER 730 computing system. The TEMPLATE graphics software package is used for all interactive graphical operations.; This thesis, which can serve as a user's manual, includes all of the information the user needs to know to use the package. Two separate examples are presented to illustrate the use of the package. The necessary information for adding new equipment modules to the IDFP is also described in detail.