Collaborative computational steering: Principles and application in HVAC layout

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Borrmann, André | Wenisch, Petra | van Treeck, Christoph | Rank, Ernst^{; *}

Affiliations: Computational Civil and Enviromental Engineering, Technische Universität München, Lehrstuhl für Bauinformatik, Arcisstrasse 21, 80290 Munich, Germany

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 89 289 23047; Fax: +49 89 289 25051; E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract: In this article, we present the Collaborative Computational Steering platform CoCoS. It enables geographically distributed engineers to use steerable simulation and analysis facilities during a collaborative design session. The environment is based on a distributed component architecture composed of a central Collaboration Server, an arbitrary number of Simulation Servers and an arbitrary number of clients. The Collaboration Server manages the shared model consisting of a three-dimensional geometric model and additional semantic data like boundary conditions for a certain simulation. The Simulation Servers provide simulation and analysis data for the engineer's front-end application and can be connected to the platform on demand. By using the explicitly available meta-model, the shared model can be dynamically adapted to the needs of simulation facilities that are not known a-priori. Exemplarily, the utilization of the CoCoS platform for the collaborative layout of a Heating Ventilation Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system is shown. In this context, the implementation and integration of an interactively steerable fluid simulator based on the lattice-Boltzmann method is discussed. This simulator allows obstacles to be inserted into the fluid domain, relocated, and removed from it during the simulation process and the impact of these modifications on the fluid flow to be seen immediately.

DOI: 10.3233/ICA-2006-13405

Journal: Integrated Computer-Aided Engineering, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 361-376, 2006