Steady-state initialization of object-oriented thermo-fluid models by homotopy methods

Abstract

The steady-state initialization of large object-oriented thermo-hydraulic networks is a difficult problem, because of the sensitivity of the convergence to the initial guesses of the iteration variables. This paper proposes an approach to this problem based on homotopy transformation, detailing specific criteria for model simplifications in this physical domain. The approach is successfully demonstrated on large power plant test cases, having several hundreds of iteration variables.