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jayez-325 avatar image
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jayez-325 asked jayez-325 commented

Fluid Transfer from Flowtruck to Road Tanker with Looping Dispatch Issue

Hi, I'm working on a fuel terminal simulation using the FloWorks module. My goal is to simulate the transfer of fluid from a flowtruck to a road tanker that arrives on a schedule.

Current Setup:

  • The flowtruck's tank level decreases as it refills the road tanker.
  • Once the road tanker is full, the flowtruck should return to the bay to refill itself from the storage tank.
  • When a new road tanker arrives, the process should loop back and dispatch the first available flowtruck.

Problem Encountered:

  • The process flow does not loop back to dispatch the first available flowtruck when a new road tanker arrives.
  • I currently use a delay to simulate the refueling time, but the flowtruck should only stop when the road tanker's tank is full.
  • the flowtruck did not refill itself at the bay

i already tried to use floworks process flow into my simulation, but it didnt work.

How can I properly control the refueling process and ensure the loop restarts with the first available flowtruck?

attached here is my simulation file.

fluidTransferProblem.fsm1742111360101.png

FlexSim 24.1.0
proces flowFloWorksfilling process is my problemflowtaskexecutor
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1 Answer

Jesús Padilla avatar image
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Jesús Padilla answered jayez-325 commented

Hi!

I have taken a look at your model and made some changes into it. The system console also had some errors being raised related to the event triggered source "bowser arrive" where you were waiting for the event "On arrival" but the truck loading point does not have that event. These are the changes that I have made:

  • - There were Process Flow containers that were connected and at the same time you were creating a token in the same starting point therefore two tokens were sent there while only one was needed, so either connect it using the arrows or just create a token there.
  • - Related to that, if you connect a container to two destinations at the same time, the token will go to the rank first destination. This is what happens after your "refuel road tanker" which is connected to "truck travel back" and "road tanker depart". For that you can for example a create tokens activities and create a token in one of the blocks.

  • 1742204420760.png - In order to not use a delay for fill/refill and wait until the tanks are full you will need to connect the vessels of the tracks and once they are connected the flow will automatically start. Please note that you can also set the flow rate in process flow using the set flow rate activity. Then you just need to wait until the vessel from the tank is full and then continue with your flow. Please note that as FlowTrucks are composed by the truck itself and a vessel, in order to access to the vessel properties/events etc. you will need to retrieve the first subnode of the truck as you can see in the image below:1742204681411.png
  • - The aircraft resource must be released at some point otherwise the new trucks that arrive will not be able to claim a Bowser.
    - Having a dispatcher together with a resource that points to it seems a little bit redundant. Also having 8 resource quantity and 4 trucks could provoke errors. It is just simpler to link the resource with the group "Bowsers" and that would handle everything.
    - You can also use a loading arm resource to connect and refill the trucks that arrive back to the bays.
  • - Note that for the queue, you have logic in 3D and in process flow to control the same thing. You have the use transport option in 3D and a travel activity in PF, this generates an issue at some point in the simulation since both logics are in conflict. You can leave the PF logic and add a resource to also claim the Stands and either do it randomly or if they are available etc etc.
  • - As you can see in the model I sent, you can just create the truck in the node and A connect it to the network by using this simple code:

    1742206150443.png
  • - Finally I noticed your schedule source Y has entries that are not sorted in time therefore also gives an error since it will try to create a token in a point of time that was in the past.

    Please take a look at the model with these changes implemented and come back in case you have further questions! Hope this helps.


  • fluidtransferproblem_1.fsm



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