Development of a modular software system for the dynamic simulation of coal conversion plants. Quarterly report, January--March 1977
W. Schiesser, F. Stein · 1977
The basic Differential Systems Simulator, Version 2 (DSS/2) has been completed and released along with complete sets of manuals and test problems. This system contains fourteen Runge-Kutta algorithms for ordinary differential equations, five central-differencing subroutines for partial differential equations, and a series of utility routines for plotting and function generation. Stand-alone testing of the state-of-the-art implicit Gear and Carver integrators has been accomplished by the preparation of interface programs which restructure the data tables from the form which is convenient for the modeler and acceptable to DSS/2 to the form required by the particular integration algorithm being tested. The steady-state methanator for the methanation section of the RM Process has been modeled as a catalytic, adiabatic, plug-flow reactor which considers simultaneous water-gas shift and methanation reactions. The coding has been thoroughly tested, and documentation has been presented. The unsteady-state methanator has been coded under the same model conditions as the steady-state reactor. Upsets introduced into the model have shown some transients, but the results are not completely satisfactory. Efforts to solve the problems by mating the model and the temporal integration techniques are proceeding. Progress on the detailed model of the heat exchanger has followed exactly the path of the unsteady-state methanator. Work has begun on the fluidized-bed char gasifier of the COGAS gasification section in regard to particle size distribution within the reactor and its associated streams.