db_connect: Could not connect to paper db at "wotug@dragon.kent.ac.uk"
db_connect: Could not connect to paper db at "wotug@dragon.kent.ac.uk"
%T Simulation of gas pipeline networks
db_connect: Could not connect to paper db at "wotug@dragon.kent.ac.uk"
%A Minesh Patel, Paul Bentley, Clifton Hughes
db_connect: Could not connect to paper db at "wotug@dragon.kent.ac.uk"
%E Charlie Askew
%B OUG\-9: Occam and the Transputer \-\- Research and Applications
%X As part of the Alvey ParSiFal project, Logica Cambridge has
been developing a model of a significant gas distribution
network, in order to explore the potential for improvements
in modelling speed using large numbers of transputers.There
are two basic approaches to continuous simulation \- the
explicit and the implicit. The implicit approach models an
entire system as a set of equations. Current implementations
are well suited to conventional mono\-processor machines but
it is difficult to parallelize the algorithm and
consequently to fully exploit the potential of
transputers.The explicit approach models components such as
pipes as individual objects which can be directly mapped
into parallel processes, making it ideally suited to the
transputer/occam architecture. However, explicit simulation
is inherently expensive in terms of computational resources.
To enhance performance we are also working on improvements
to the model.We have developed a system using an explicit
algorithm and have simulated networks ranging from 20 to
500+ objects. Preliminary results indicate that the explicit
algorithm can efficiently exploit high degrees of
parallelism.