Why do Modelica.Fluid-pipes fail to work with my medium? - modelica

I built a medium model based on Modelica.Media to simulate a phase change slurry. The model works fine for investigations of static problems (medium at rest). But if I try to conduct my medium through a standard pipe from Modelica.Fluid, things won't work.
I put a demo Modelica package on DropBox - if anyone could have a look on it, I would be deeply grateful.
Find my PCS-Package under http://dl.dropbox.com/u/28688128/PCS.mo
The package contains the medium model as well as three test models:
EmptyTanks0 shows two balancing tanks connected directly to one another.
EmptyTanks1 shows the same set-up, but with a StaticPipe connecting the tanks. In this case, no medium is conducted. Why?
The last set-up is called EmptyTanks2. This one uses a DynamicPipe instead of the StaticPipe. The model fails at initialisation. Why?

The Dynamic pipe assumes a compressible medium (meaning, the properties have to depend on the fact that pressure p is a dynamic state (or other states, but some equivalent transformation such that density d is a function of p also, not only of T and composition X as for you. The pipe model will not work if that is not fulfilled, and you get a division by zero from that inconsistency.
Your medium model looks OK at first look (I didn't do deeper digging), but you will have to write your own pipe model. One tip: writing it ismuch, much simpler than the dynamic pipe model in the MSL.

Related

Modelica/Dymola Redeclare Component through integer

I'm currently working on a model, where I want to use an Array of Integers in order to redeclare the shown components:
Image of the blocks and redeclaration-window
My goal is to have i.e. the blank at the top left corner redeclared to a pump if the integervalue in my reference array is 1. My question would be, if it is even possible to accomplish my goal this way, or if I have to go with the dropdown-menus/manual implementation?
I already tried to use an if-clause or an Array filled with strings, but Modelica/Dymola is only allowing records to be used in the fields for redeclaration. I also tried using "redeclare model extends", to vary the extends which didn't work because of errors in the syntax.
[Possible(?) workaround]
If this is truly impossible, could it be done by piling all the components/parameters up into one model and activate/deactivate the needed parts with a parameter as shown below?
small scale of the described "workaround"
Unfortunately I'm lacking a lot of knowledge when it comes to scripting. I hope my problem is understandable.
You cannot base a redeclare on the value of an Integer parameter.
Having all of the components in one model and disabling the unneeded parts simply doesn't work for parameters (it may possibly work in some cases for components, but it will be complicated, and I wouldn't recommend it) because you aren't allowed to use the conditional parameter.
I think you should present the original goal so that we can find a better solution.
Added: In case was just to redeclare all of the blocks in the same way you could use a "class parameter", i.e. replaceable model M=... and use that for all of the components.
But it seems the intent is to have them different which makes it trickier.

How to pass multiple variables from one model to another model (inner/outer)

Let's say we have the following model:
Collector:
model Collector
Real collect_here;
annotation(defaultComponentPrefixes="inner");
end Collector;
and the following model potentially multiple times:
model Calculator
outer Collector collector;
Real calculatedVariable = 2*time;
equation
calculatedVariable = collector.collect_here;
end Calculator;
The code above works if calcModel is present only once in the system to be simulated. If the model exists more than once I get a singular system. This is demonstrated by the Example below. Changing the parameter works either gives a working or failing system.
model Example
parameter Boolean works = true;
inner Collector collector;
Calculator calculator1;
Calculator calculator2 if not works;
end Example;
Using an array inside the collector to pass multiple variables in it doesn't solve it.
Another possible way to solve this is possible by use of connectors, but I only made it work with one calcModel.
Using multiple instances of Calculator does brake the model, as the single variable calculatedVariable will have multiple equations trying to compute its value. Therefore Dymola complains that the system is structurally singular, in this case meaning that there are more equations than variables in the resulting system of equations.
To give a bit more of an insight: Actually checking Collector will fail, as since Modelica 3.0 every component has to be balanced (meaning it has to have as many unknowns as states), which is not the case for Collector as it does have one unknown but no equation. This strongly limits the possible applications for the inner/outer construct as basically every variable has to be computed where it is defined.
In the given example this is compensated in the overall system if exactly one Calculator is used. So this single combination will work. Although this works, it is something that should not be done - for the obvious reason of being very error-prone (and all sub-models should pass the check).
Your question on how to solve this issue actually misses a description of what the issue actually is. There are some cases in my mind that your approach could be useful for:
You want to plot multiple variables from a single point, which would be collector. For this purpose "variable selections" should be the most straight-forward way to go: see Dymola Manual Vol. 1, Section "4.3.11 Matching and variable selections" on how to apply them.
You want to carry out some mathematical operation on that variables. Then it could be useful to have a vectorized input of variable size. This enables an arbitrary number of connections to this input. For an example of this take a look at: Modelica.Blocks.Math.MultiSum
You want to route multiple signals between different models (which is unlikely judging from your description, but still): Then expandable connectors would be a good possibility. To get an impression of what that does take a look at Modelica.Blocks.Examples.BusUsage.
Hope this helps, otherwise please specify more clearly what you actually want to achieve with your code.
I prepared a demonstrative library for such scenario some days ago. You can access it at https://gist.github.com/beutlich/e630b2bf6cdf3efe96e5e9a637124fe1. If you read the documentation on Example2 you can see the link to an article from H. Elmqvis et. al., which is the clue to your problem. That is, you need a connector, and inherited connects from every Calculator to the one Collector.

Two-Phase Modelica Media example

I am trying to develop a simulation in OpenModelica of a flow that has a single substance that will be liquid or vapor. The Modelica.Media.Water models do have two phases, but are extremely complicated, and would be very hard to reproduce for a completely different substance.
I would like to find a simple example of a two phase medium that I can work from. There is a partial package TemplateMedium and a partial package PartialTwoPhaseMedium, but I don't see any examples of how to write a completely new Medium that can be in either of two phase.
If anyone can provide a simple example, or just a list of the minimum set of properties and equations that are required that would be extremely helpful as a starting point.
To address some of the question in comments:
I am just getting started on this model, so I am trying to understand the details of how the Media model is constructed, and what my specifics are included in the model versus what has to be added for each new media. I working with propylene, so there is good data available. This is one of the media that is included in CoolProp, so being able to use ExternalMedia and CoolProp would be very useful, but I believe that these are not yet working with OpenModelica, from a number of comments and bug reports.
Generally, your medium model can be written in Modelica or you can reuse an existing external library. Writing good medium models is a lot of work, so reusing existing libraries is usually a good idea. This is the approach taken by ExternalMedia (open source) or TILMedia (commercial).
If you are interested in an open-source workflow, ExternalMedia in combination with Coolprop is a reasonable decision. All three projects OpenModelica, ExternalMedia and CoolProp accept contributions from the community, so maybe you should help improving these instead of writing your own library. There is a lot of work going on already, I am unsure of the current status. Writing qualified bug reports (including steps to reproduce the problem) is also a very welcome way to contribute.
For some applications, it might be good to have the Medium model directly in Modelica. This is the approach taken by Modelica.Media (obviously), HelmholtzMedia and the commercial media libraries from XRG or Modelon (not 100% sure about that). There are some more implementations, but these are neither open source nor commercial, only information are e.g. conference papers.
The examples you can look at include the R134a medium from the MSL or the code from the HelmholtzMedia library.
Also, looking at the ExternalMedia implementation might help.
For fluids that cannot change phase, there are some good examples in the Annex60 library.
As you have a pure substance that can change phase, your new medium should extend from PartialTwoPhaseMedium.
PartialTwoPhaseMedium is partial, defining only what functions are there, but (mostly) not the algorithms of the functions.
You will have to write an algorithm for each and every function that is available in the interface and does not have an algorithm in order to be fully compatible.
For a start, you should implement at least one of the setState funtions, e.g. the setState_ph function.
Then later, implement at least one setSat function and the BaseProperties.
If you implement your own medium, you also have the choice of how to model it: Using the full multiparameter Helmholtz energy equation of state, a simpler equation of state like Peng-Robinson or other cubic EoS, some polynomials or splines, table-based methods like TTSE or SBTL and probably many more options.

Searching for a concept like 'verbosity' in Modelica

I'm struggling with the size of output files for large Modelica models. Off course, I can protect some objects in order to remove them completely from the result file. However, that gives rise to two problems:
it's not possible to redeclare protected objects
if i want to test my model in detail (eg for a short time period), i need to declare those objects publicly again in order to see their variables
I wonder if there's a trick to set the 'verbosity' of a Modelica model. Maybe what I would like is a third keyword next to public, protected, eg. transparent. Then, when setting up a simulation, I want be able to set the verbosity level to 1, or 2 with the following effect:
1--> consider all transparentelements as protected
2--> consider all transparentelements as public
This effect would propagate to all models and submodels.
I don't think this already exists. But is there an easy workaround?
Thanks,
Roel
As Michael Tiller wrote above, this is not handled the same way in all Modelica tools and there is no definite answer. To give an OpenModelica-specific answer, it's possible to use simulate(ModelName,outputFilter="regex"), to store only the variables that fully match the given regex (default is .*, matching any variable).
Roel,
I know several people wrestling with this issue. At the moment, all of this depends on the tool being used. I don't know how other tools handle filtering of results, but in Dymola you control it (as you point out) by giving the signals special qualifiers (e.g. protected).
One thing I've done in the past is to extend from a model and then add a bunch of output signals for things I'm interested in. Then you can select "Outputs" in Dymola to make sure those get in the results file. This is far from perfect because a) listing everything you want can get tedious and b) referencing protected variables is not strictly allowed (although Dymola lets you get away with it but issues a warning).
At Dassault, we are actively discussing this idea and hope to provide some better functionality along these lines. It isn't clear whether such functionality will be strictly tool specific or whether it will involve the language somehow. But if it is language related, we will (of course) work with the design group to formulate a specification that other tool vendors can support as well.
In SystemModeler, you go to the Settings tab in the Experiment Browswer in Simulation Center. Click on Output on the bottom and select which variables to store.
(The options are state variables, derivatives, algebraic variables, parameters, protected variables and if you mark the Store simulation log-option, you'll get some interesting statistics on events over time and function evaluations, opening another possibility to track down parts of the simulation and model that creates more evaluations)
I am not sure if this helps you, but in Dymola you can go to Simulation->Setup->Output and mark a checkbox saying "Store Protected variables". That way it is possible to declare most variables as protected: during normal simulation they are not stored, but when debugging your model, you just mark that checkbox and they are stored.
Of course that is not the same as your suggested keyword transparent, but maybe it helps a little...
A bit late, but in Dymola 2013 FD01 and later you can select which variables to store based on names (and model names) using the annotation __Dymola_selections, and even filter on user-defined tags - so you could create a tag name "transparent" in the model. See "Matching and variable selections" in the manual.

Pocketsphinx - Adding words and Improving accuracy

I've managed to finally build and run pocketsphinx (pocketsphinx_continuous). The problem I'm running into, is how to a improve accuracy. From what I understand, you can specify a dictionary file (-dict test.dic). So I took the default dictionary file and added some more pronunciations of the same words, for example:
pencil P EH N S AH L
pencil(2) P EH N S IH L
spaghetti S P AH G EH T IY
spaghetti(2) S P UH G EH T IY
Yet pocketsphinx still does not recognize either word at all. I know there is a jsgf file you can specify as well , but that seems more for phrases and grammar. How can I get pocketsphinx to recognize common words such as pencil and spaghetti?
thanks
-Mike
With something like this, you can't be certain, but I can offer the following suggestions:
Perhaps the language model somehow has low probabilities for "spaghetti" and "pencil". As you suggested, you could use a JSGF to test out how it does for recognition if it doesn't use the N-gram models, but instead does a simple grammar (give it like twenty words, including spaghetti and pencil). This way you can see if it is perhaps the language model which makes it difficult to recognize these words, and it can do okay if it considers all the words to have equal probability.
Perhaps you simply pronounce these words poorly, even with the alternative dictionary entries. Try either A. Testing other peoples' voices, or B. Adapting the acoustic model to your voice (see http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/tutorialam)
Also, what is it recognizing them as when it is failing? If possible, remove the words it misrecognizes as from the dictionary.
Again, for overall accuracy, only three things are going to really help you: restricting the grammar, adapting the accoustic model, and perhaps getting higher quality recording input.
To improve accuracy you may want to try adapting the acoustic model to your voice.
http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/wiki/tutorialadapt
To learn how to add new words: http://ghatage.com/tech/2012/12/13/Make-Pocketsphinx-recognize-new-words/
Make sure you put a tab (not a space) after the word and before the start of the pronunciation.
May be the problem is with Pocketsphinx. I too was not getting good results with Pocketsphinx. But I was getting very good accuracy with Sphinx4 (for a US speaker with a noise-cancelling microphone.) Therefore I did a comparison between the two using the same audio recordings. For pocketsphinx I used pocketsphinx_batch with the WSJ audio model and a small vocabulary language model and dictionary (created online with the CMU Cambridge language modelling toolkit.) For Sphinx4 I wrote a small Java program using the Sphinx4 library. The result was that Sphinx4 was much more accurate. All the gory details are at http://www.jaivox.com/pocketsphinx.html.
To achieve good accuracy with a pocketshinx:
Important! Check that your mic, audio device, file supports 16 kHz while the general model is trained with 16 kHz acoustic examples.
You should create your own limited dictionary you cannot use cmusphinx-voxforge-de.dic while accuracy is dramatically dropped.
You should create your own language model.
You can search for Jasper project on GitLab to see how it's implemented.
Also, please check the documentation
This is on the CMUSphinx website
"There are various phonesets to represent phones, such as IPA or SAMPA. CMUSphinx does not yet require you to use any well-known phoneset, moreover, it prefers to use letter-only phone names without special symbols. This requirement simplifies some processing algorithms, for example, you can create files with phone names as part of the filenames without any violating of the OS filename requirements.
A dictionary should contain all the words you are interested in, otherwise the recognizer will not be able to recognize them. However, it is not sufficient to have the words in the dictionary. The recognizer looks for a word in both the dictionary and the language model. Without the language model, a word will not be recognized, even if it is present in the dictionary."
https://cmusphinx.github.io/wiki/tutorialdict/