Guidelines for the Application of a Coupling Method for Non-iterative Co-simulation

Modular simulation requires efficient coupling of the involved subsystems. Subsystems are independently solved and synchronized at coupling time instants. By the commonly used non-iterative coupling approach the extrapolation of some coupling quantities is necessary because of bidirectional dependencies between subsystems. Thus, a coupling step-size dependent coupling error is introduced. Required sampling of the coupling signals may lead to aliasing effects and unintentional discontinuities at coupling time instants occur. A recently developed coupling error compensation approach seems to be able to solve the typical problems concerning non-iterative co-simulation. However, for adequate usage of the available functionalities proper settings of the proposed coupling scheme are mandatory. In this work, the basic nearly energy-preserving coupling approach is explained and significant extensions are proposed. Especially, the resulting enhanced coupling performance enables smoothing of the coupling signals without degradation of the overall system behavior. The resulting effects as well as the specific adjustments are discussed, which leads to supporting parameterization guidelines.