INTERVIEW
CÉSAR DE PRADA
“EcosimPro stands out because it is an extremely open tool which enables easy integration and communication with other applications”.
César de Prada Moraga is a Professor of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering and Head of the Automatic Control and Systems Engineering Department of the Universidad de Valladolid, Spain.
He has a doctorate degree in Physical Science (Electronics).
ECOSIMPRO: In a recent article, you assured that the “process industry” holds a special place in today’s economy. What does this concept encompass and why do you think it is so important?
Cesar de Prada: The process industry encompasses sectors such as petrochemical, food, cement, steel, paper, etc, and these clearly have an important influence in our domestic production.
E: Modelling is a key technology for the future of the control of these processes you have mentioned. In this regard, what role do tools like EcosimPro play? What are its main fields of application? What are the advantages?
C.P.: Industrial processes and systems are increasingly more complex, and every day there is a greater need for improvement in design and production. Techniques that incorporate mathematical models and simulations offer considerable advantages in understanding behaviours and tackling multiple problems, while they save time and provide better solutions. Simulators are used in personnel training, decision making to optimise costs, design during off-line simulations instead of resorting to prototypes, testing prior to startup, etc.
E: Competition and internationalisation push towards a more efficient and flexible way of manufacturing and towards reducing startup times in new product markets. In this regard, developing new technologies designed for very demanding industries plays a very relevant role. Is this true for EcosimPro?
C.P.: Precisely, EcosimPro belongs to the latest generation of leading edge technology in the world of simulation tools and the so-called modelling languages, that in addition to facilitating the improvement of models and carrying out the simulations efficiently, they provide ample help in the maintenance and reuse of the models.
In addition, EcosimPro has incorporated innovative and powerful elements to its latest versions that facilitate its use embedded in other applications such as complex calculation engines as it simultaneously works efficiently with very large systems.
E: As far as is teaching in concerned, is it difficult to teach this type of language? What do you think of programming tools such as EcosimPro? Is it surprising to know that it is a highly sophisticated application developed by the Spanish industry 20 years ago?
C.P.: Generally speaking, simulation languages are pretty easy to learn, and more so those like EcosimPro that use clear and simple syntax. Also, for users that are not experts, there is a graphical environment that allows describing the system by drawing a sketch of it, which really helps in terms of use.
Regarding the last part of your question, I don’t think this country is different from any other, and a competent and well-equipped team is more than capable of coming up with first-class developments here just like in any other place.
E: Through your experience with EcosimPro, do you consider this product to be one of the most advanced in the world?
C.P.: Of course. EcosimPro is one of the environments with the most advanced characteristics on the market. I really think that its open characteristics and easy integration and communication with other applications are among its greatest assets.
In addition, EcosimPro has accurate numerical processing for both continuous and discontinuous systems, and this allows implementing real-like simulations of thousands of equations, which is important in large-scale applications. It is equally important to point out the possibilities of automatic initialization of the models, C++ class insertion as well as the use of partitions that give it great flexibility.
E: Lastly, could you tell us about projects in which your department has used EcosimPro?
C.P.: We have been using EcosimPro for years in different types of applications with remarkable results. In particular, we use EcosimPro in the development of simulators for sugar factories, to train control room operators, and in this case working in a distributed manner with various simulations running in parallel in different computers that communicate with each other. Likewise, we use it as a calculation engine, combined with optimisation algorithms in applications of data reconciliation and optimisation of hydrogen distribution networks in refineries.
We also use EcosimPro as the core of advanced control systems, typically predictive control, in which we periodically have to carry out optimisation of the combined control variables with the simulation of the process.
Other applications cover the creation of dynamic libraries of the process industry, desalination plants, motors, etc.
