Computation of flow diagrams of an acausal physical model and its application to hybrid power generation system design

Abstract

In the design process of complex engineered systems, design alternatives should be generated and verified systematically while realizing fast product development through the adaptation of the concepts of modular design and model-based design. Automation of the design process, or its synthesis process in particular, is crucial in increasing the productivity of the design process. Computational design synthesis (CDS) is a crucial technology for such automation, but CDS studied to date is not capable of generating design alternatives as combinations of various components, and of verifying their behavior considering physical phenomena in various domains. On the assumption that system modeling and simulation techniques are used in context of modular design and model-based design of complex engineered systems, this study proposes a flow diagram automatically transformed from acausal physical model, which is used in these techniques. The flow diagram shows relations between sub-models in terms of energy-levels described with specific physical domains, and flow direction changes that characterize the system behavior. The paper shows that flow diagrams of a system model at different time intervals support generation of design alternatives considering its behavior characterized by these flows. The study illustrates the usage of the method with design improvement of a hybrid power generation system.