Using BCVTB for Co-Simulation between Dymola and MATLAB for Multi-Domain Investigations of Production Plants

Abstract

This paper discusses the cooperative simulation of models implemented in Modelica, Simscape, Simulink and MATLAB for the aim of energy optimization in cutting factories. To simulate the thermal processes in production halls, the machines and the room itself have to be modelled in varying detail. To achieve a quite accurate comprehensive model, the individual machines and the room are modelled in different software and then simulated with the co-simulation tool BCVTB, which stands for Building Controls Virtual Test Bed. The communication between the individual models requires a lot of preparative work and as can be seen at the end of the paper, it works fine for a fixed communication time step but is not possible with a continuous synchronization for all given software. Still, the possibilities of co-simulation with BCVTB can be found sufficient for the needs of thermal pro cesses which react very slowly and not in time steps of hugely differing dimensions respectively, but require a period of time which can easily be approximated small enough for a certain scenario