CODEWITHSUNDEEP
modelica
Yigal
Yigal

Reputation: 123

beginner: is it safe to rely on modelica for my project?

Assuming I model a complete system correctly, according to the Modelica syntax, are the compilers 'mature' enough to handle it?

I need to model a system with at least 15 connected components, each components is relatively simple, mathematically speaking, only algebric equations. Modelica is very appealing to me but I am a complete beginner and this project is important to me so I'm a little bit afraid to commit to Modelica.

I understand that compilers can't fully simulate all of the standard library examples and models, how can I know what are the exact limitations?

Thanks.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1349

Answers (1)

Michael Tiller
Michael Tiller

Reputation: 9421

Well, it depends quite a bit on what tool you choose of course. I can tell you from personal experience that over 10 years ago I used Dymola in a project at Ford Motor Company where we modeled an engine (combustion), transmission (mechanisms and hydraulics) and chassis (multi-body representation). The resulting system had 250,000 equations and certainly hundreds if not thousands of components and connections. You can find more information about the project in a paper I wrote.

Of course, it depends on other things besides the size of your models. Most Modelica tools do not really support variable structure (DAEs with variable index) and others have limitations with respect to some of the language constructs that they fully support (which therefore means some libraries are not fully supported).

Unfortunately, at the moment there is not a comprehensive way to qualify the support from different tools but this is something that the Modelica Association recognizes is a problem and they are working on it.

But overall, Modelica is quite mature and is used in many, many industrial projects. You can find the proceedings from the previous 8 Modelica Conferences at http://www.modelica.org/ and you will see that many big name companies (Ford, BMW, GM, Toyota, Airbus, etc) have published material there.

Upvotes: 3

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