A software application for visualizing and understanding hydraulic and pneumatic networks

Hydraulic and pneumatic networks are highly nonlinear and difficult to analyze. This paper presents a software application designed to help students visualize and understand fluid systems' dynamic behaviors. The application uses a combined bond graph and singular perturbation approach for system equation formulation. A standard iterative and adaptive integrator provides online numerical solutions to the system equations. Coupled to the integrator’s output are a graphical animation subsystem and an instrumentation subsystem. The animation subsystem is responsible for rendering movable components on screen, at every simulation time-step, creating the illusion of continuous movement. The instrumentation subsystem collects and displays numerical data in numerical and graphical forms. An interesting contribution of this fluid system analyzer is its “user-in-the-loop” feature. This feature allows students to become active participants by enabling them to interact with network components while a simulation run is in progress.