Introduction to Modelica: An Object-Oriented Language for Modelling Complex Physical Systems
Thomas Gustafsson Control Engineering Group Lule˚ a University of Technology
May 2011
Abstract
Modelica is an object-oriented language that is developed with the goal to be a convenient tool for modelling the dynamical behaviour of complex technical systems consisting of of components from different domains such as mechanical, optical, electrical, thermal, hydraulic, pneumatic, fluid, control and others. The object-oriented properties of the modelling language facilitates the writing of general model libraries that can easily be expanded and modified. The language is equation-based and it is easy to mix differential, algebraic and discrete equations with algorithms. The paper presents an overview of Modelica and demonstrates the usage of Modelica for simulation and optimisation.
1