Simulation of Liquid Food Processes in Modelica
Tomas Skoglund · Lund University Publications (Lund University) · 2003
Traditionally, liquid food processing equipment has been designed and engineered from a static perspective, where it has been taken for granted that dynamic behaviour easily could be handled by “add on” of control equipment such as sensors and computers with control programs including control loops. However, as production demands, e.g. mixing accuracy, are escalated, this approach fails, and the importance of simulating the dynamics of the system becomes crucial. A tool that makes it possible to minimise the cost and time for building prototypes and making experiments would be of considerable value, particularly if the tool enables reuse of earlier work. Equally important is the possibility to test various design ideas to improve the equipment performance to en extent that otherwise would not be conceivable. This article describes how the Modelica based tool Dymola1 has been used to build up a library (“FoodProcessing”) primarily aiming at simulating certain dynamic behaviour in liquid food processing plants, particularly characterised by incompressible fluids with complex rheologic behaviour, transport delays and dynamically changing concentration