Transport

Transport

The transport block is not really a block but a sub-system. It is used to automatically generate a chain of compartments for one dimensional transport.

There are three components to a transport block:

Begin represents the first compartment of the chain.
End represents the last compartment of the chain
N is an expression that gives the total number of compartments, or discretizations, in the transport.

When a transport sub-system is created the begin, end and N blocks are added automatically. The transport chain is defined by connecting the begin and end blocks with transfers. The begin block will be duplicated (N-1) times, where N is the number of discretizations.

Creating a transport sub-system

From the Projects window

Expand the Project to which you wish to add the expression by clicking the + symbol next to it. Right-click on ‘Blocks’, or a sub-system in ‘Blocks’, and select Transport from the pop-up menu.

From the Model window

Right click an empty diagonal cell of the matrix and select Other | Transport from the the pop-up menu.

From the Blocks window

Place the mouse cursor over the table and right-click on it. Select New | Transport from the pop-up menu.

Editing a transport sub-system

The transport sub-system is edited the same way as a normal sub-system. You can add expressions, parameters and other blocks to it the same way as you would in an ordinary sub-system.

Example

Simple case

Consider a vertical transport from a source, via a layered media, to a sink. The model is implemented with a transport sub-system according to the matrix below.

Source	Input
	Begin	TC
		End		Out
			N
				Sink

Where

Source is a Source/Sink block
Input is a Transfer block
Begin is a Transport begin block
End is a Transport end block
TC is a Transfer block
N is a Transport N block with the value N=5
Sink is a Source/Sink block

The corresponding matrix, during simulation, looks like this:

Source	Input
	Begin	TC
		Begin	TC
			Begin	TC
				Begin	TC
					End	Out
						Sink

Advanced case

A common use for the transport sub-system is to model vertical transport through a media with advection and diffusion. This example shows transport from a top soil layer (implemented as a compartment), through several layers of soil (implemented as a transport sub-system) to a ground water compartment.

Top soil	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
Diffusion	Begin	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
	Diffusion	End		Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
			N
				Ground water

Where

Top soil is a Compartment block
Advection are all Transfer blocks with the expression
Diffusion are all Transfer blocks with the expression
Begin is a Transport begin block
End is a Transport end block
N is a Transport N block with the expression N=”peckle’s number”
Ground water is a Compartment block

The corresponding matrix, during simulation, looks like this:

Top soil	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
Diffusion	Begin	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
	Diffusion	Begin	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
		Diffusion	Begin	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
			Diffusion	Begin	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
				Diffusion	End	Advection\\ \\ Diffusion
					Diffusion	Ground water

Limitations

Within the transport, the compartments must be homogenous. This means that each “layer” must have the same size and that all the transfers expressions betweeen layers must be identical.

Another limitation is that only the begin and end compartment are available as outputs or when connecting the transport to other objects of a model.

To calculate the mean or total inventory of each transport layer you can use a Transport operation block.

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