Physical Modeling of Dynamic Systems

Karl Johan Åström

Course description

This course gives an overview and the basic concepts of physical (sometimes called first-principles) modeling of dynamic systems for simulation and control. In lectures and exercises the modeling language used will be Modelica, using the Dymola simulator. The last time a modeling course was given was in 1996, called Object-Oriented Modelling of Hybrid Technical Systems.

Organization

The course will be given as a series of 9-10 lectures (2*45 minutes). The lectures will be held by Karl Johan Åström. The course is open to graduate students in LTH and other schools. List of attendants.

Examination

Schedule

Period: February - March, 2000.

The first lecture is on Wednesday 26/1, in the ControlRoom (seminar room), 2nd floor of the M-building. Following lectures:

  1. Thursday 3/2, 10.15
  2. Thursday 3/2, 15.15
  3. Thursday 10/2, 10.15
  4. Thursday 10/2, 15.15
  5. Thursday 17/2, 10.15
  6. Thursday 17/2, 15.15
  7. Wednesday 23/2, 13.15
  8. Wednesday 23/2, 15.15
  9. Thursday 2/3, 15.15
  10. Project presentations in mid-March.
Prerequisites:Master in Engineering.

Lectures

All the downloadable files are in pdf format.
  1. Introduction, history, basic ideas. Lecture1
  2. Differential Algebraic Equations. Lecture2
  3. Electrical circuits and Modelica basics. Lecture3
  4. Mechanical systems. Lecture4
  5. Fluid dynamics. Lecture5
  6. Waves. Lecture6
  7. Vehicles1.Lecture7
  8. Vehicles2. This lecture was unfortunately post-poned until after the course.
  9. Boiler modelling. Lecture9
  10. Thermohydraulic modelling. Lecture10a
    + Biotechnical modelling. Lecture10b

Take Home Problems

The basic requirement to take the course is to solve some "Take Home" problems and hand in the solutions. Problem descriptions are given in the lectures. Below are links to pages with solutions to the problems. These pages are only for local access and for course participants.
  1. Electrical circuits.
  2. Mechanical systems.
  3. Fluid dynamics.

Dymola/Modelica links

In all the lectures, exercises and hand-ins we use the modeling language Modelica. To run simulations at home you will need a demo version of Dymola. There is an online Dymola documentation, including manual and Modelica tutorial and specification. It is available in the Dymola distribution, for proprietary reasons we cannot keep a link here.
Hints&Tips for working with Dymola, including answers to questions from the exercises.
Jonas Eborn

Last modified: 2000-03-03