Process Simulation with ASP.NET and Matlab

The Food Engineering Process Simulation (FEPSIM) web application was developed on behalf of professor Alex Koulouris at the Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki. Since we last checked, the application was up and running at this link. FEPSIM hosts educational simulation material in the field of food process engineering, which was developed by professor Koulouris and his team. The application incorporates video and charting libraries as well as Matlab components into ASP.NET Web Forms pages.

Functionality at a glance:

  • User registration/login and language selection.
  • 9 interactive pages with various simulation experiments.
  • Each page includes:
    • Background theory and usage instructions.
    • A number of quiz questions related to the presented experiment.
  • Quiz questions are easily managed by editing relevant .xml files.
Front Page

Technical highlights:

  • jPlayer for playing videos. Multiple videos are manually synchronized.
  • Flot charts for plotting the charts. Chart plotting is synchronized with video playing.
  • Matlab WebFigures are incorporated into Web Forms pages for interactive viewing of Matlab models.

Mass Balance Calculations

Functionality at a glance:

  • Users add components at the relevant top panel. Components are automatically added to the four side panels.
  • Options can be changed for all streams at the top right panel.
  • Application back-end solves mass-balance equations (solving done by food process engineers).
  • Various interface elements support calculation visualizations.
Mass Balances Calculations

Flow in Pipes Simulation

Functionality at a glance:

  • Juxtaposition of the flow in a pipe of two materials selected at the top of the page.
  • Synchronized videos show how each experiment progresses.
  • Synchronized graph plots pressure drop values for each pipe.
  • New materials can be easily added by the scientific team without writing code.
Flow in Pipes

Cylindrical Heat Transfer Simulation

Functionality at a glance:

  • The experiment shows the heat transfer of a cylindrical pipe covered by 1, 2 or 3 isulation layers.
  • The experiment parameters are set at the top of the page.
  • The heat transfer is depicted by three interactive charts (the first one in 3-D and the other two in 2-D) via the Matlab webfigures control.
MATLAB Simulations