LabVIEW - Flownex Engineering Simulator

J.H.J. Prinsloo
Simulation Design Engineer
M-Tech Industrial

Jean van der Merwe

Simulation Design Engineer
M-Tech Industrial

Category

Control Design/Simulation

Products Used

LabVIEW 8.2, PID Toolkit, LabVIEW real time module and DSC module
Flownex version 7.009

The challenge

Designing a control system for a First Of A Kind (FOAK) pebble bed experimental
facility (Heat Transfer Test Facility (HTTF)) and testing the controllers before the plant
is complete. This project and its timeous results contribute to the development of the
Pebble Bed Modular Reactor.
In order to design controllers without an actual plant requires a soft plant where
controllers are applied on a simulation of the actual plant. Ideally this simulation must be
able to predict the exact plant behavior especially during the transient events where the
thermal inertia of the plant should be taken into account. This simulation must also be
easy to use and manipulate. The designing and implementation of this simulator must
contribute to the timeous completion of the project, thus it should not add any
unnecessary time requirements.

The Solution

The solution was the development of a LabVIEW-Flownex engineering simulator. An

engineering simulator can be defined as follows:
Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes.
1

A Simulator is used to simulate an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or

process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key
characteristics or behaviors of a selected physical or abstract system. 2
An Engineering Simulator is used to design, implement and test or analyze certain key
characteristics and/or requirements of an actual plant/ works before or during the actual

Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia

Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia

construction and commissioning thereof. It can also be used to assist and train technical
personnel.
The requirements for the engineering simulator are defined as follows:
Design and test controllers for a First Of A Kind (FOAK) plant before the actual
plant is commissioned.
Actual plant Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) and controllers
should be used.
The exact dynamic plant behaviour should be predicted by taking the thermal
inertia of the plant into account.
Simulation should be easy to use and manipulate.
Actual plant look and feel should be replicated in the simulator to enable training
of operators.
Should assist in fault detection during commissioning.
Fast and user friendly implementation of simulator to contribute to timeous
completion of project.
Real time simulations.

Introduction and requirements

Flownex Introduction:
Flownex is an advanced component scale systems level thermal-fluid code that can deal
with both steady-state and dynamic problems. Component scale refers to 2D or even 3D
fine porous component models in addition to 0D or 1D models in most pipe network
codes. 2D or 3D fine porous component models are used to model complex heat
exchangers, nuclear reactors, solid structures or flow through porous media. Systems
level refers to the modelling of complete thermal-fluid systems such as steam, gas
turbine, combined cycle or nuclear power plants; refrigeration systems, ventilation
networks or water distribution networks. 3
HPTU Plant background
The Heat Transfer Test Facility (HTTF) consists of two clearly distinguishable test units
namely the High Temperature Test Unit (HTTU) and the High Pressure Test
Unit (HPTU). The purpose of the facility is twofold namely:

To validate the correlations that are currently used to model the relevant heat
transfer and fluid flow phenomena required for the integrated simulation of a
pebble bed core, via a comprehensive set of separate effects tests.

To generate results that may be used to validate the different simulation

methodologies applied in the integrated models that represent the entire pebble
bed core, via a comprehensive set of integrated effects tests.

The HPTU plant operating conditions vary such that the coolant density for two tests can
differ with a factor of 50 and the mass flows with a factor of 1000 in a Nitrogen
3

www.flownex.com

environment. One of the control challenges involved the control of a heated sphere power
input at a constant offset surface temperature of 50 C above the cold nitrogen gas stream
for various mass flow rates at different densities.
The HPTU is already in the operational phase but the LabVIEW Flownex engineering
simulator was not used for the design of the controllers on this project. The controllers
were designed and implemented during the commissioning phase of the project. It was
planned to design the controller inputs by linking another SCADA and controller to a
Flownex model of the HPTU. The PID controller inputs obtained by this simulator were
then added to the LabVIEW 7 controllers used to control the HPTU plant. The idea was
to eliminate the need for costly actual plant start-ups and shut downs to obtain the control
parameters for LabVIEW. The difference in control algorithms used in the simulator
compared to the LabVIEW controllers caused the LabVIEW controllers to behave
different to the anticipated behaviour obtained from the other control software package.
As a result the programming of the controllers caused a lot of precious down time during
the commissioning of the plant. Most of the controller inputs had to be obtained by
testing on the actual plant. This implied that each commissioning modification to the
plant caused the design of the controller to halt, since the plant could not be started. The
opposite was also true: the commissioning tests was greatly dependent and delayed due to
controller testing and programming. Although the plant was delivered on time for the
start of the operational phase, great amounts of overtime and expensive rush job costs
could have been avoided.

Figure 1: The High Pressure Test Unit that is already in operation.

HPTU simulator lessons learnt

The following Simulator challenges were encountered on the HPTU:

The difference in control algorithms between the other simulator and LabVIEW
caused the LabVIEW controllers to behave different to the anticipated simulator
behaviour.

Inputs to the programmed user parameters cant be dynamically changed during

simulation and the simulation had to stop after each user adjustment.

Adjustment of the time step during simulation to get the optimum performance
and accuracy was not possible.

Most of the controller inputs had to be obtained by testing on the actual plant.

Every transient simulation needed to be pre-programmed.

HTTU plant background

The HTTU plant differed from the HPTU in the sense that very high temperatures are
used during the testing and the physical plant is almost four times as large as the HPTU.
The thermal inertia associated with the large quantities of graphite used in the tests
planned for the HTTU introduced another requirement that was not that critical in the
HPTU plant. With these requirements in mind and the valuable lessons learnt on the
HPTU, a serious rethink of the simulator to be used to design the controllers was
required.

Figure 2: HTTU in the design phase.

Cooling tower

Gas supply bank

Water tank

Pump

Pump

Pump

4 x gas cycles
Test section
Pump

Blower

Main Heat
exchanger

Flow meters
Pump
Low flow
Heat
exchanger

Stem cooler supply pumps

Figure 3: HTTU basic plant layout.

The HTTU project thus required a real time simulator that can be used to design and test
the controllers and control algorithms before the construction of the plant is complete.
LabVIEW is used to develop the SCADA system for the HPTU and the HTTU and in
order to simulate any control scenario correctly the simulator need to use LabVIEW for
its control applications.
The LabVIEW-Flownex simulator
The motivation to use LabVIEW and Flownex for the simulator involved the following:
Flownex is a very accurate systems CFD thermal fluid code.
Flownex is an easy to use systems CFD code and has much faster simulation
times compared to its contenders. This makes for an ideal simulator engine:
Quick and Accurate.
Flownex and LabVIEW use the same type of graphical programming
elements, functions and wires.
Data logging is handled by LabVIEW through shared variables logging
functions, thus no extra data logging programming is required that simplifies
the setup of the simulator.
By using the same language for the simulator and the control system the
developed controllers or PID control algorithms can only be downloaded
directly to the compactFieldPoint controller.

 This simulator setup does not require any pre determined simulation sets.
This implies that the user can adjust any variable at any time.
The user can investigate any plant behavior without putting the plant at risk.
The user can also increase or decrease the speed of the simulator to get the
optimum performance and accuracy.
For very large or complex simulation models the simulation times can become slower
than real time, for example the model of the High Temperature Test Unit. The Flownex
network shown in Figure 4 is a simplified network of the complete HTTU plant. This
model consists of very accurate and detailed models for each system in the plant as the
data acquired will be used for controller design. This involved models for the pebble bed,
the heat exchangers, the water jacket model, auxiliary systems, etc.

Flownex real time

plant simulation

LabVIEW SCADA and

control

Figure 4: LabVIEW Flownex engineering simulator provides the integration between the soft plant and
the actual LabVIEW user interface.

The only method of increasing the speed of any simulation is either increasing the
computer performance or decreasing the simulation accuracy. The LabVIEW-Flownex
simulator has the solution for this all known computer performance problem. By
subdividing the models of the plant into separate Flownex models, the plant can be
simulated separately and if the user wants to investigate the effect of the plant as a
complete model the subdivided models can be linked together. If the user requires to
increase the performance of the simulator even further as a result of a much larger and
more detailed plant, the models can be divided between more than one computer.
Figure 5 illustrates the expandability of the LabVIEW-Flownex engineering simulator.
The user executes the divided Flownex models on any number of workstations. The

LabVIEW-Flownex interface VI collects all the input and output data and connect them
to Shared variables. The user interface can run on any of the model workstations or a
separate workstation (depends on the free resources of a workstation). The user interface
uses the binding ability of shared variables to connect to all the models shared variables.
POWERFULL LABVIEW FLOWNEX SIMULATOR
WORKSTATION 1

WORKSTATION 2

WORKSTATION N

Heat exchanger model

Heater model

Water jacket model

External Control set

External Control set

External Control set

Flownex Interface VI
and Shared Variables

Flownex Interface VI
and Shared Variables

Flownex Interface VI
and Shared Variables

WORKSTATION

1,2 or N

Shared Variables using Bindings

User Interface

Figure 5: Expandability of LabVIEW-Flownex simulator.

The heater element for example is positioned in the centre of the annular graphite pebble
bed as shown in Figure 6. The heater element, pebble bed and water jacket, which forms
only a part of the main thermal fluid Flownex network shown in Figure 4, can thus be
modelled as a separate Flownex model as shown in Figure 7. This separate model can
with the help of the shared variables in LabVIEW be linked to the other separate detailed
models on the same or different computers or processors. A typical section of the
LabVIEW programming to enable the communication between LabVIEW and Flownex
inputs and outputs are shown in Figure 8. The combined simulation power, speed and
accuracy are then integrated and displayed on the LabVIEW SCADA and control
interface as shown in Figure 9. The figure illustrates the behavior of the test section
model of the heater, pebble bed and waterjacket during transient events specified by the
user on the LabVIEW interface. The display for the different interlocks and the fault or
bridge indications are also shown in Figure 9.

Graphite central reflector

Graphite spheres
in Pebble bed

1200mm

Graphite

Water Jacket
Heater Elements
Figure 6: Heater element position relative to the test section and waterjacket.

Heater
Element

Water
jacket
Graphite
reflectors

Figure 7: Heater element, pebble bed and water jacket Flownex model in the test section.

Figure 8: Typical LabVIEW programming to link inputs and outputs to and from LabVIEW and Flownex.

Figure 9: LabVIEW - Flownex engineering simulator interface for the heater, pebble bed and water jacket
in the test section during simulation.

Conclusions

Using the LabVIEW-Flownex engineering simulator the controllers have already been
designed by the time the plant commissioning starts. There are also sufficient operators
trained before the commissioning even commence.

Thus, to summarize the advantages and capabilities of the LabVIEW-Flownex simulator:

No predetermined simulation setups are required, the user can simulate without
stopping the simulator.
The simulation speed can be adjusted by increasing the computer load or by adjusting
the accuracy during simulation.
Simulation speed can be increased by either using a faster computer or by splitting up
the models on different computers.
The simulator setup/connection to Flownex is very easy to use.
The simulator setup file is small - approximately 36 Kbytes.
The Flownex models can provide accurate results at faster than real time speed.