DWSIM Introductory Course
About Me
• I’m Daniel!
• Full name: Daniel Wagner Oliveira de Medeiros
• Became a Chemical Engineer on Dec 2004
• Programming since 2001 (C, C++, VBA, [Link], C#...)
• Developing DWSIM since 2004
• Working as a Process Engineer at the Oil and Gas industry since 2005
• Online instructor since 2018 (?...)
Course Outline
• About DWSIM
• Why DWSIM
• Features
• History & Origins
• Early versions
• Why Open-Source?
• Comparison with Other Tools
• HYSYS
• Aspen Plus
• COCO Simulator
• Strengths
• Weaknesses
• Source Material
• Papers
• Books
• Online sources
Course Goals
• Understand what DWSIM does
• Why it is what is is
• What were my inspirations
• How it compares to other tools
• What is the source material
About DWSIM
• Why DWSIM
• It should have been something different, but you can think about something like Daniel Wagner
SIMulator? It was a suggestion from a friend of mine which I didn’t take too seriously at the
time… now I find it too weird. Let’s consider that DWSIM is just a name, without any meaning…
much better this way.
• Features
• [Link]
• [Link]
• History & Origins
• First Excel macros (VBA – PR & SRK EOS, UNIFAC models)
• Bill Barrett’s paper (Development of a CAPE-OPEN compliant process simulator on
[Link] - [Link]
• Microsoft’s Design Surface Sample ([Link]
• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
([Link]
cts)
About DWSIM
• Early versions
• The first release
• Becoming open-source
([Link]
• Mono Version ([Link]
• Further development
• Milestones
• CAPE-OPEN interfaces ([Link]
• Parallel Solver & GPU acceleration
([Link]
_3)
• Remote solvers ([Link]
• Mobile versions
• Cross-Platform Interface ([Link]
• Why Open-Source?
• Because I’ve wanted everyone to know how a chemical process simulator works…
Comparison with Other Tools
• DWSIM x HYSYS (inspiration for UI, setup workflow, result reports, material
stream composition input)
• DWSIM x Aspen Plus (I don’t know Aspen Plus, never had to work with it and
don’t like it. Very confusing interface)
• DWSIM x COCO Simulator (used to test the CAPE-OPEN interfaces and check
calculation results)
• Strengths
• Availability (DWSIM is available on all platforms)
• User Interface (some users say that it is very user-friendly)
• Models (many Unit Operations and Thermo models)
• Support (very fast e-mail support)
• Bug fixing and new releases (I’ve always try to fix bugs as soon as possible and am always
working on new features)
• Weaknesses
• Documentation (insuficient written documentation)
• Math instability (because I have to use free tools…)
• Free tools only (because DWSIM is GPL)
Source Material
• Source Material
• Papers
• Books
• Online sources
à Check additional file for a list of relevant papers and books
Other DWSIM Courses
• Basic 1 (Installation, Setup, Running a Simulation)
• Basic 2 (Thermo & Unit Operation Models, Solution Inspector)
• Basic 3 (Additional Flowsheet & Rigorous Column Models)
• Intermediate 1 (Reaction Subsystem & Petroleum Fractions)
• Intermediate 2 (Compound Creation & Flowsheet Utilities)
• Intermediate 3 (Flowsheet Analysis Tools)
• Advanced 1 (Advanced Modeling, Data Regression, Excel Add-In)
• Advanced 2 (Python Scripting)
• Developer (Debugging Sessions, Interfaces, DTL & Extras)
The advantage of being the developer...
• We will be running DWSIM in debug mode all the time!
• You will understand how DWSIM internals actually work
• We’ll be doing the tasks together from scratch
• We will be working around errors as they arise
• I’ll be giving hints during the course based on my experience as the
developer of the tool