INTERVIEW
EcosimPro Team
“EcosimPro is one of the most-advanced simulation programs on the market”
“EcosimPro” is one of the world’s most advanced mathematical tools for multidisciplinary system modelling and simulation. Used for years in aerospace projects (eg, NASA, ESA; etc) as well as in fields such as energy, fluids, control and robotics, it allows simulation of situations and processes whose analytical solutions would otherwise be practically impossible.
QUESTION: It takes a highly qualified and consolidated team to develop such a large-scale tool as EcosimPro. Who’s on the team and how long have they been doing this?
ECOSIMPRO: EcosimPro has been developed by a multidisciplinary team. Team members come from a variety of backgrounds: IT, aeronautics, industrial engineering, chemistry, etc. We believe the fact of having such diverse backgrounds and coming from other fields has had a very positive influence on how EcosimPro has been developed.
Q.: Coordinating the different areas covered by the EcosimPro application must also involve very specific definition of the tasks. How is the team structured?
E.: The overall areas covered by the development team include:
Software development
Module testing
User documentation
Customer management
Customer support and problem solving regarding modelling and software usage
Maintenance and support of simulation libraries
Q.: Many professionals and end users are familiar with EcosimPro and its various applications, but they may not be aware of its origins. How has the tool evolved so far?
E: EcosimPro got its start back in 1989, when Empresarios Agrupados was awarded a European Space Agency (ESA) project to write code for simulating environment control and life support systems (ECLSS) on manned spacecraft and spacelabs (Columbus). Later, the code was seen to be a generic mathematical tool that could be used in other fields such as energy, propulsion, hydraulics and control. Up to 1997, EcosimPro Versions 1 and 2 were released mainly for restricted use in ECLSS.
In 1996 a decision was made to make a commercial tool to run on Windows, and in 2000 Version 3 was released with new libraries. Since then, new versions have been created with more features. The latest version is EcosimPro Version 4.4, and a new versions is scheduled for release in 2009.
Q.: Over all these years, EcosimPro been universally consolidated in the market with very positive references. There must be more than a few success stories that were particularly significant because of their importance or difficulty. Which ones would you point out?
E: There have been several different areas where we think EcosimPro has been particularly well established: propulsion, environment control and energy, to name a few.
We believe that there have been some major successes in these fields, such as ESA choosing EcosimPro as the official tool in Europe for propulsion and ECLSS. In the energy field, EcosimPro has been used in-house here at Empresarios Agrupados in combined cycle and nuclear power plant projects quite successfully.
Q.: The key to success in any project is based on a strong team, made up of qualified members who are personally determined to tackle new challenges. Are these the defining characteristics of EcosimPro?
E: The development of a tool like EcosimPro is possible thanks to the dedication of a team that is enthusiastic about what it does. The world of numerical simulation is certainly very broad and exciting. This motivates those of us involved in the project to give it our all in making something really useful and practical that can also be a commercially competitive product.
EcosimPro is a complex software package (comprising more than one million lines of code) for solving linear and non-linear equations, object-oriented modelling language, highly intuitive graphics environment, etc., which have required vast analytical capacity for its adaptation to any mathematical problem.
There is no doubt that the team’s defining characteristics are passion for the job and confidence that EcosimPro is a first-class Spanish R&D product.
Q: What do you think is least known about your work and your achievements?
E: Surely, what is least known about our work is that we have developed one of the most advanced simulation tools available on the market. Now we need to focus on marketing and promoting EcosimPro so that it can gain popularity and recognition. To date, EcosimPro is a state-of-the-art tool already competing against American and European products with widespread circulation capacities.
Q: What kind of relationship do you have with your users and customers?
E: We enjoy a very open and friendly relationship with our users. Through an on-line database users can report problems, express doubts or make suggestions. We try to answer all questions as quickly as possible. An interesting aside regarding our customers is that as they gain more experience with the program, they tell us how impressed they are with EcosimPro’s capabilities.
Q: What kind of project are you working on now?
E: At the moment, we are working on projects in two key areas:
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EcosimPro upgrades, which include new wizards for creating experiments, algorithm improvements for clever model generation, connection optimization with other software, etc
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PROOSIS modelling and simulation tool, which is based on EcosimPro but has been adapted for modelling aeronautical gas turbines. System design capabilities are being added, based on restrictions, compressor and turbine map handling, advanced display of the motor performance curve, etc. We expect PROOSIS to be an internationally renowned reference tool used in gas turbine design and performance assessment.
Q: What do you foresee is the future of EcosimPro both in Spain and abroad?
E: We believe EcosimPro has a promising future. The importance of using simulations and their direct application in engineering design and production is greater each day. Companies are realising that by using these tools they save both time and money. In addition, EcosimPro has proven to be very useful when studying how systems will react under conditions that cannot be tested in real life due to their risk level or because they are too expensive to test. EcosimPro is the solution to these problems.
Q: Is there a specific field of application that you would like to develop further?
E: EcosimPro can be used as a simulation and modelling tool in any field whose behaviour can be expressed through equations. For example, libraries can be created for new energy producing technologies, such as wind and solar power, that are rapidly becoming viable alternatives for the production of energy.
Other fields of interest for which models have still not been developed include processes related to petroleum (from extraction to refining), wastewater treatment plants, potabilisation plants, etc. EcomsimPro could also be applied to process industries such as cement factories, paper factories, pharmaceutical companies, etc. It is all a question of time and of finding customers who believe in using the simulation to improve their processes.
