JOSEPH R. AMYOT is a senior research officer in the Division of Mechanical Engineering, National Research Council of Canada, who has electrical engineering degrees from the universities of Ottawa (B.A.Sc.), Manitoba (M.Sc.) and the West Indies (Ph.DJ. Dr. Amyot's career includes four years of industrial design and development, five years teaching, and sixteen years of research at the NRCC. His research has been mainly in the area of dynamic systems, with emphasis on methodology, analysis, design, control and optimization. He has written extensively in this field, including co-authorship of a book on simulation in railway dynamics. He is currently editing a book on the technology, economics and applications of hovercraft. GERARD P. VAN BLOKLAND is a programmer/analyst in the Division of Mechanical Engineering, National Research Council of Canada, who has a M.Eng. degree from Carleton University. Over the last twentyfive years, he has been involved in simulation and optimization of dynamic systems using analog and digital computers. Typical application areas have included nuclear power stations, gas turbines, hovercraft and wind tunnel controls. He has co-authored various technical papers.ABSTRACT A method whereby a parameter optimization program, written in FORTRAN, can be used in conjunction with ACSL (Advanced Continuous Simulation Language) models of dynamic systems is described. The optimization of a projectile's trajectory is used as an example.
A steam-driven electrical power generating station was designed with the aid of a hybrid computer simulation.In the process, it was advantageous to reduce the order of the system of nonlinear equations describing the boilers and turbines. Since there is no general procedure for reducing the order of nonlinear systems~ each case must be treated individually. However~ the methods used in one system are sometimes applicable to others. The approach taken in the above reduction is presented with this in mind.
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