BondLib: Bond Graph Library for Dymola/Modelica
Introduction
BondLib is a graphical modeling environment that was developed in the
realm of the Dymola/Modelica family of Modeling tools. BondLib
implements the methodology of modeling physical systems using bond
graphs, a technique that had been developed 1960 at M.I.T. by Henry
Paynter.
Bond graphs describe the power flows through a physical system. Since
the concepts of energy conservation and power flow continuity are valid
for all physical systems, bond graphs may be employed for modeling any
and all physical phenomena.
Bond graphs form an intuitively attractive modeling tool that enables
its user to understand and explain the dynamics of physical processes
clearly and succinctly. For this reason, bond graphs are suitable both
as a didactic and also as a highly practical tool for modeling physical
systems.
Historical Development
- BondLib was developed 1987 as an alternative to the tools
Enport and Tutsim that were widely used in those
days. Whereas Enport could only be used at that time for
modeling and simulating linear systems, Tutsim was neither
flexible nor general enough to allow modeling large-scale
systems efficiently and in a user-friendly manner with it.
BondLib was developed as an alphanumerical library for the
modeling environment Dymola. The alphanumerical version of
BondLib, implemented under an early version of Dymola, was
introduced in
chapter 7 of the book
Continuous System Modeling.
- In 1996,
Michael Schweisguth developed in his
MS Thesis a first version of a graphical interface for
BondLib. This interface was implemented under Version 3 of
Dymola. Unfortunately, the graphics interface of Dymola was not
yet very powerful at that time. For this reason, Michael
Schweisguth's version of BondLib was never used outside the
framework of his thesis.
- In 2001, a much improved version of the graphical interface was
developed under Version 4 of Dymola/Modelica. This version was
fully operational, and it has been used regularly in class work
ever since (
).
Still missing was a suitable interactive documentation, because
the software documentation tools of Dymola weren't satisfactory
yet.
- In 2005, a much enhanced and fully documented version of BondLib
(
Version 1.2) was developed. This version now also
contains a full-fledged implementation of the electronic circuit
simulator Spice as well as many sample programs.
- In 2007, two sub-libraries for modeling one-dimensional
translational and rotational mechanical motions were added. Also
new is a sub-library for modeling one-dimensional heat flows
((
Version 2.1).
- Today, BondLib offers by far the most flexible bond-graph
modeling environment available on the software market. The
reason for its flexibility is founded in the fact that
Dymola/Modelica modules coded under different modeling formalisms
can be interconnected easily and elegantly.
Most Important Publications
- Cellier, F.E. (1991),
Continuous System Modeling,
Springer-Verlag, New York.
- Cellier, F.E. (1992),
Hierarchical Non-Linear Bond Graphs: A Unified Methodology for
Modeling Complex Physical Systems,
Simulation, 58(4), pp.230-248.
- Cellier, F.E. (1995),
Bond Graphs: The Right Choice for Educating Students in
Modeling Continuous-Time Physical Systems,
Simulation, 64(3), pp.154-159.
- Cellier, F.E. and R.T. McBride (2003),
Object-oriented Modeling of Complex Physical Systems
Using the Dymola Bond-graph Library,
Proc. ICBGM'03, 6th SCS Intl. Conf. on Bond Graph
Modeling and Simulation, Orlando, Florida, pp. 157-162.
- Cellier, F.E. and A. Nebot (2005),
The Modelica Bond Graph Library,
Proc. 4th International Modelica Conference,
Hamburg, Germany, Vol.1, pp. 57-65.
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Last modified: August 2, 2007 -- © François Cellier