Extendible simulation software for dynamic systems

Abstract

Simulation of dynamic physical system models is an integral part of the engineering design process. The software used to perform simulations and the language used to develop that software are, in themselves, important issues to the simulation commu nity. Some significant characteristics of simulation software are: robustness, solution efficiency, ease of learning, ease of regular use, range of modeling features, maintain ability, and extendibility. This work investigates the extendibility properties of the relatively new software methodology- object oriented programming - in a simula tion context. The reason is that many existing softwares seem to have reached an effective limit with respect to enhancing their capabilities within their original design framework. Object oriented programming, on the other hand, promises to provide good extendibility features by the very nature of its basic concepts. Our investigation, which involved the development of a pilot simula tion program in a series of planned stages, shows that this promise is soundly based for dynamic physical system simulation software.