On Compartmental Modelling of Mixing Phenomena

In this paper the problem of modelling partial mixing phenomena, mostly relevant in environmental and reactors modelling practice, is considered. The ultimate modelling goal is to find identifiable, finite-dimensional state-space models, which are physically interpretable, realisable and which describe partial mixing. Hence, realization theory will be linked to prior physical systems knowledge to answer the question which mixing models are good candidates in environmental/reactor systems modelling. The starting point is compartmental systems modelling with backflows. It appears however that only a limited set of low-dimensional structures is identifiable. From the real world example given in this paper it appears that an appropriate, physically interpretable and realisable model within this class of models cannot be easily found. Copyright © 2002 IFAC