CADSIM Plus Runtime Performance

Consider the performance of a real-world example: the NPE.DRA process simulation that is distributed with the CADSIM Plus's optional Fiber Group Library. Here are some statistics from the drawing/simulation that you may wish to compare with other simulation systems:

• Calculations of 232 process equipment units including digester, washing, screening, oxygen delignification, bleach plant, (9 washers - 5 distinct types) pulp drying, evaporation, recovery boiler, lime kiln, clarification and recausticizing plant
• Component tracking of water, fiber, organic dissolved solids, inorganic dissolved solids, Ca Cl K Mg Mn Na S and Si ions in solution, Ca Cl K Mg Mn Na S and Si bound with the fiber, as well as temperature throughout the fiber line. Tracking water, organic solids, inorganic solids, inert suspended solids, NaOH, Na2S, Na2CO3, Na2SO4, Na2SO3, Na2S2O3, NaCl, CaCO3, CaO, Ca(OH)2, K, Na, S, Cl and 39 user defined stream variables throughout the recovery cycle
• More than 20 tanks plus high density storage and plug flow towers that are complete with animated rising and falling level displays, and high- and low-level alarms. Animations are updated every iteration
• 49 PID controllers
• Charting 3 separate variables on strip charts that are updated each minute
• Continuous updating of 566 separate numeric values on the flowsheet and computer screen with every iteration

Although this plant-wide, multi-component, dynamic simulation is by no means the largest CADSIM Plus simulation, you can see it is by no means trivial. There is a significant amount of dynamic information updated on the screen, and the depth of stream variables that are being tracked and calculated is extensive.

CADSIM Plus runs this NPE.DRA simulation, using 1 minute iteration steps, at more than 3200 times faster than real time on an 'elderly' 700 MHz Pentium III laptop! This performance would allow you to observe the next 48 hours of scheduled operation changes in less than 1 minute of real time!

Take the challenge. Compare the performance of any other dynamic simulator running a simulation that is close to this level of complexity. By the way, did we mention that the data file for this model is just 334 K bytes in size?