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, VB.NET, 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
• http://sourceforge.net/projects/dwsim
• http://dwsim.inforside.com.br/
• History & Origins
• First Excel macros (VBA – PR & SRK EOS, UNIFAC models)
• Bill Barrett’s paper (Development of a CAPE-OPEN compliant process simulator on
Microsoft.NET - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009813540500219X)
• Microsoft’s Design Surface Sample (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms973830.aspx)
• Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Visual_Studio_Express#2005%E2%80%932010_produ
cts)
About DWSIM
• Early versions
• The first release
• Becoming open-source
(https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/opsim/ROUZoBMXiiY)
• Mono Version (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/opsim/L6RLLsFn6oQ)
• Further development
• Milestones
• CAPE-OPEN interfaces (http://dwsim.inforside.com.br/wiki/index.php?title=CAPE-OPEN)
• Parallel Solver & GPU acceleration
(http://dwsim.inforside.com.br/wiki/index.php?title=Parallel_calculation_options_in_DWSIM
_3)
• Remote solvers (http://dwsim.inforside.com.br/wiki/index.php?title=Solver_Configuration)
• Mobile versions
• Cross-Platform Interface (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IUG6hMs8Uo)
• 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