A closer look at Inline
This post has a closer look at the different inlining options: Inline, LateInline and InlineAfterIndexReduction as described in the Modelica Specifications in Section 8.3. The post describes how these inlining options differ and gives some extra details about how this inlining has been implemented in Dymola. What is inlining?...
Bump ‘n’ Rub: a look at Daytona 500 bump drafting
It’s early February. Speedweeks are upon us, and the Motorsports community is gearing up for the marquee event on the NASCAR calendar. Heralded as The Great American Race, the Daytona 500 is world famous as a frightening 200 MPH chess match of drafting, tactics and bumping. Drivers look to work together and...
Dymola Setup – Where is it?
In this blog post I look at the Dymola setup settings, how you edit them and where they are stored. There are lots of options available to personalise your Dymola setup; I won’t cover the detail of all the settings here, but by knowing where to edit them and...
What are eigenvalues in engineering systems
What are eigenvalues in a physical system? Eigenvalues describe the stability of a system and often associate with linear algebra. One way to understand eigenvalues is to show their use in describing engineering systems, such as the mass spring damper system described in this post. It shows that by...
Layout: tidy and not so tidy
I’ve been having a look at some models recently and seeking to make them more “readable” and easier on the eye. This blog post looks at why poorly laid out models can be detrimental to our modelling efficiency. Some of these principles can also be applied to other activities...
An Introduction to System Modelling – 1. Before Building the Models
This is the first in a series introducing the best approach, preparation and practice when system modelling. This post specifically investigates what you should consider before you start modelling. Modelling a system can be a difficult task to get right. There are many things to consider before approaching a...
Dymola 2020x keyboard shortcuts for the ribbon
Dymola 2020x has an improved user interface and in the process has modified keyboard shortcuts for accessing functionality that previously was on the toolbar and is now on the ribbon. This blog post looks at the new keyboard shortcuts used to navigate the Dymola ribbon and select the tools....
What’s New in Dymola 2020x
Eagle eyed users will immediately notice that this year’s second release of Dymola breaks with the usual naming tradition; gone is the FD01 designation, in is the “x” nomenclature, but that’s not the only thing to change. The user GUI has undergone a complete overhaul, modernised to render a...
Requirements for effective systems modelling
Over the past …. erm, many years I have come across different types of systems that have been modelled in a range of software tools, mainly with the aim of performing reduced cost and much faster “what-if” analysis by removing the need for building as many physical prototypes. Despite...
Simulation Settings Stored In The Class Annotation
In the Modelica language, the annotation keyword is used to define graphics, documentation, menus and many other attributes that do not affect the behaviour of the system modelled. In this post I’m going to focus on the class annotations that let you store the simulation settings used to control...