Viewing water temperatures in SimScape

Hello,

I am new to Simscape and was trying to do something that I thought would be quite straightforward but I am not having much luck with it so far. I have a very simple system that I want to try and simulate and then build it into something more complex.

The system is shown in the attached file. I want to simulate a closed loop of water with a fixed volume that circulates around passing through a heat input device which will increase its temperature and then through a heat rejection device that will decrease its temperature.

I want to be able to measure the temperature of the water in the loop before and after each device. The flowrate will be constant and same volume of water keeps circulating around resulting in feedback and a constantly increasing water temperature. I'm either completely misunderstanding the operation of SimScape or missing something obvious but how do I implement this feedback and closed loop effect?

The systems in question are shown below:

Note: I had to add the constant volume chamber as the model would not simulate without it and gave me the following errors

Initial conditions solve failed to converge. ...Equations of one or more components may be dependent or inconsistent. This can cause problems in transient initialization. Here is the set of components involved: 'untitled/Mass Flow Rate Source (TL)' Equation locations are: 'D:/MATLAB/toolbox/physmod/simscape/library/m/+foundation/+thermal_liquid/+sources/mass_flow_source.ssc' (line 44) 'D:/MATLAB/toolbox/physmod/simscape/library/m/+foundation/+thermal_liquid/+sources/mass_flow_source.ssc' (line 45)

'untitled/Pipe (TL)' Equation location is: 'D:/MATLAB/toolbox/physmod/simscape/library/m/+foundation/+thermal_liquid/+elements/resistive_tube.ssc' (line 50)

'untitled/Pipe (TL)1' Equation location is: 'D:/MATLAB/toolbox/physmod/simscape/library/m/+foundation/+thermal_liquid/+elements/resistive_tube.ssc' (line 50)

Any help would be much appreciated,

Barry Flannery

[Andreas]

Could you please add your original model here? I'll have a look on it.

Answer 1

[Andrew Schenk]

Barry,

You will want to use the Pressure and Temperature sensor:

http://www.mathworks.com/help/physmod/simscape/ref/pressuretemperaturesensortl.html

Additionally you may be interested in the Simscape Results Explorer which lets you log and view results from a Simscape model without adding additional sensor blocks:

http://www.mathworks.com/help/physmod/simscape/ug/log-navigate-and-plot-simulation-data.html

[Barry Flannery]

Thanks for this - I found it out in a related thread.

Answer 2

[Barry Flannery]

Hello,

I am resurrecting this thread as I am back trying to do something similar. I have attached an attempted model of what I have drawn figuratively above.

I am interested in seeing the water temperature before and after each of the pipes. I presume the temperature probes that I have shown are showing the temperature of the pipe itself.

Thanks,

Barry