Cost effective architecture for real-time simulators

The importance of process simulation and especially simulation in real-time, is becoming increasingly apparent to industry. A real-time dynamic simulator can have various applications such as assessment of new plant operating conditions, operator training and safety analysis. Although there are many steady state flow sheet simulators only few dynamic simulators are available with generic applications. The limitations of the existing generic products and the high cost of customised simulators have created a barrier suppressing the commitment of medium sized firms towards this technology. However, recent advances in processor technology have made is possible to greatly reduce the cost of real-time simulation environments. The author provides an overview of a cost effective high-performance architecture for real-time simulation applications, i.e. multiprocessor architecture