Decentralized industrial process simulation system

摘要

A high fidelity distributed plant simulation technique includes a plurality of separate simulation modules that may be stored and executed separately in different computing devices. The simulation modules communicate directly with one another to perform accurate simulation of a plant, without requiring a centralized coordinator to coordinate the operation of the simulation system. In particular, numerous simulation modules are created, with each simulation module including a model of an associated plant element and being stored in different drops of a computer network to perform distributed simulation of a plant or a portion of a plant. At least some of the simulation modules, when executing, perform mass flow balances taking into account process variables associated with adjacent simulation modules to thereby assure pressure, temperature and flow balancing.

主权项

1. A distributed simulation system for simulating the operation of a set of physical plant elements through which mass flows, comprising:
a computer network including a plurality of drops and a communication network that communicatively couples the plurality of drops, wherein each of the plurality of drops includes a processor; and a multiplicity of processor implemented simulation modules, each of the multiplicity of simulation modules including a process model that models the operation of a different one of the physical plant elements, wherein a first one of the simulation modules is an upstream simulation module located in a first drop of the plurality of drops that models the operation of a first one of the set of physical plant elements and a second one of the simulation modules is a downstream simulation module located in a second drop of the plurality of drops different from the first drop that models the operation of a second one of the set of physical plant elements disposed downstream of the first one of the set of physical plant elements; wherein the downstream simulation module operates via a processor to communicate a value of a process variable calculated by the downstream simulation module to the upstream simulation module, and the process model of the upstream simulation module operates via a processor to use the value of the process variable calculated by the downstream simulation module to produce an output associated with the operation of the physical plant element modeled by the upstream simulation module, so that the upstream and downstream simulation modules communicate calculated process variable information between one another to perform simulation of mass flow between the first physical plant element and the second physical plant element.