Just the other day, I paused to reflect on the vast range of applications we’ve modelled at Claytex over the years. It’s astounding when you take a moment to consider not only what we’ve achieved in the past few weeks, but also over the past year, and even since Claytex’s inception in 1998.
My first experience with Dymola came in 2006 while modelling hybrid vehicles at the University of Warwick in the UK. I quickly realised its immense potential for simulating physical systems, though at the time, we were constrained to delivering the simulation tool I was working on using Simulink. The following year, I joined Claytex to begin developing a Modelica library for internal combustion engine modelling – the Engines Library.
The versatility of the individual components I was developing, like bearings, shafts, pipes, valves, and others, was remarkable! We soon began building aftertreatment systems and incorporating chemical equations into these models. For wheeled vehicles, we also accumulated extensive experience and developed application libraries for modelling the systems integration of motorbikes, buses, agricultural machinery, excavators and trucks. Today, this suite of libraries is known as VeSyMA – Vehicle Systems Modeling and Analysis.
Returning to the tool and modelling language: Modelica is domain-agnostic, meaning it can be used to model any physical domain we wish and the interactions within a system. With versatile components, where the code is both open and customisable (allowing users to modify it without relying on library developers), we expanded our work to systems beyond just wheeled vehicles for on-road and off-road use. Over the years, we have leveraged the expertise we developed in road vehicles and the fast-paced motorsports industry to help our customers model and undertake:
- Power boat racing controller optimisation
- Aircraft landing gear deployment
- Yacht hydraulic platforms
- Hydraulic office door closing mechanisms
- Excavators
- Submarine drive trains including their mounting systems and NVH characteristics
- Deep sea drilling rigs for mechanical load analysis but also development, testing and pre-commissioning of controllers
- Thermodynamics optimisation of partially closed environments such as cabins, offices, data centres, dwellings and greenhouses to study which technologies most benefitted the reduction of energy consumption
- The virtualisation of physical testing in general, in particular
- Replicating durability analysis test procedures across multiple industries
- Air cleaning/scrubbing system performance testing
- Steam generation system performance testing and pre-commissioning
- Oil well sucker rod load modelling for fatigue analysis data generation
- Railway and train dynamics
- Static and mobile refrigeration systems
- Sanitary equipment water consumption
- Coffee and soda stream machine system optimisation
- Mechanical watch geartrain analysis
- Drum pedal mechanism friction analysis
- Water extraction well systems
- Hydraulic actuation of mining machinery
- Agricultural machinery including its electrification
- UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles)
- Golf buggy dynamics
- Hydrogen production plants
and there are even more projects we’ve had the privilege to work on. The broad range of Dymola and Modelica applications has certainly kept us busy over the years. It has also given our team the opportunity to dive deeper into the intricacies of physical interactions in the real world—something we all find fascinating at Claytex. There’s always something new to learn. Simulation offers a way to explore almost anything, virtually anywhere.
Contact us to explore how systems simulation can benefit you and your product in a no-obligation discussion.
Written by: Alessandro Picarelli – Engineering Director
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