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Modelica Standard Library

The workbench ships with the Modelica Standard Library 4.1.0: Modelica, ModelicaServices and Complex appear in the package browser next to the bundled Daedalus library, with nothing to install. On the command line, pass an MSL checkout as extra sources (see Command line).

In plain terms: the Modelica Standard Library is the common collection of ready-made model parts, and its examples come with reference results, the official answers published by the Modelica Association. An example "matches" when Diokle gives the same answers.

Coverage

512 of the 534 MSL 4.1.0 example models translate and simulate to the end, and 488 of them match the Modelica Association's reference results (see below). They include:

  • Mechanics (Rotational, Translational, MultiBody), Electrical (Analog, Digital, Machines, QuasiStatic machines, PowerConverters, Batteries), Thermal, Blocks, StateGraph and clocked synchronous models;
  • Modelica.Media: IF97 water, R134a, ideal-gas mixtures, moist air and reference air, through compiled run-time functions with exact partial derivatives;
  • most Modelica.Fluid systems;
  • ModelicaStandardTables lookups, replaced by native tables with linear, constant, Akima and Fritsch–Butland smoothness, hold, linear and periodic extrapolation, and time events at breakpoints.

The remaining failures, and what is being done about them, are listed in the Roadmap.

Results of the 534 MSL 4.1.0 examples by top-level package: matching the reference, running but differing, and failing

Language features

Each row says what the compiler accepts and where it stops. The numbers count the MSL examples of the matching package that match the reference results (the table in Checked against the reference results has the full breakdown). A feature can be fully supported in the simulator and still be missing from the embedded or CasADi backends, so the last column lists those limits.

Feature MSL examples that match Limits
Variables, records, arrays, enumerations, connectors and flow variables Electrical.Analog 51 of 55, Rotational 15 of 17, MultiBody 38 of 42 none found in the MSL sweep
Complex numbers ComplexBlocks 2 of 2 none found
when, pre, edges, reinit, zero-crossing events Electrical.Digital 23 of 23 when in functions is rejected; when equations are left out of the CasADi export with a warning
Synchronous clocks (sample, Clock) Clocked 74 of 77 clocked equations are rejected by the CasADi export
State machines (MLS chapter 17: initialState, transition, activeState, …) not measured by the MSL examples; the tests are listed on State machines see State machines for the supported operators and limits
Streams in Modelica.Fluid Fluid 15 of 23 most start-up transients of the bigger systems still fail or differ
Modelica.Media (IF97, R134a, ideal-gas and moist-air mixtures) Media 21 of 21 none found
Tables: CombiTable1D, CombiTimeTable, CombiTable2D Blocks 29 of 31 2-D tables are rejected by the embedded and CasADi backends; usertab C functions and MATLAB v7.3 files are not supported
External C functions Math 4 of 4, Utilities 3 of 3 impure external functions are rejected in embedded code; string arrays cannot be arguments
Functions with algorithms and while loops counted in the rows above a break or return under a run-time condition inside a while loop is not supported; while loops are rejected by the CasADi and embedded backends
delay() counted in the rows above the simulator supports it; the embedded and CasADi backends reject it
FMI 2.0 and 3.0 export, FMU import see FMI and SSP a model with FMU components cannot be exported as an FMU, and steady states are not computed for it

The seven StateGraph examples (a block library built from ordinary equations and events, in Modelica.StateGraph) match the reference, but they do not exercise the chapter 17 operators.

Features with no row, such as expandable connectors and homotopy(), have not been measured against the MSL yet, so this table does not claim them.

External C functions and lookup tables

Many MSL models call C functions from the MSL's own C libraries. Diokle implements these natively, following the reference C sources, so the same models run in the browser:

  • ModelicaRandom: the xorshift64*, xorshift128+ and xorshift1024* generators, the impure random generator and automatic seeds, behind Modelica.Math.Random and the Blocks.Noise sources;
  • ModelicaFFT: the real FFT behind Modelica.Math.FastFourierTransform;
  • ModelicaIO: reading and writing real matrices in MATLAB v4, v6 and v7 files;
  • ModelicaInternal and ModelicaStrings: printing, files, time and string functions used by Modelica.Utilities.

The browser bundle holds the .mo sources only, not the library's Resources/Data files. Models that read those data files therefore stop in the browser: Utilities.Examples.ReadRealMatrixFromFile reads three .mat files from there and fails with "function array size must be known". They run on the command line.

Functions with constant arguments are evaluated once at translation. Functions with hidden state, such as the impure random generator, are never folded or cached.

Lookup tables follow the C tables exactly:

  • CombiTable1D and CombiTimeTable with every smoothness kind of the C tables, first and second derivatives, and the C time-event intervals;
  • CombiTable2D with bilinear, constant and bivariate Akima interpolation;
  • tables read from text, CSV and MATLAB v4, v6 and v7 files.

Tables supplied through a usertab C function and MATLAB v7.3 (HDF5) files are not supported. These additions made 21 more examples match their reference results:

  • all Blocks.Examples.Noise models;
  • the FFT examples, Rectifier6pulseFFT and Rectifier12pulseFFT;
  • Math.Random.Examples.GenerateRandomNumbers;
  • Utilities.Examples.ReadRealMatrixFromFile and WriteRealMatrixToFile (on the command line; in the browser only WriteRealMatrixToFile runs, see How the browser loads it);
  • the excited synchronous machines (SMEE_*) and RollingWheelSetPulling, after a state-selection fix.

Open the uniform noise example

The state machines of chapter 17 are covered in State machines.

Checked against the reference results

Simulating is not enough: the results have to be right. A nightly CI job simulates every MSL 4.1.0 example and compares its comparison signals with the Modelica Association's reference results (MAP-LIB_ReferenceResults, generated with Dymola), and fails if a model that passed in the committed baseline stops passing. Each example runs with the tolerance its reference was generated with (the experiment tolerance times 0.1, as recorded in the reference's creation.txt), on the reference's output grid.

Result Models
Matches the reference results 488
Simulates, but a signal differs 24
Hits the time limit 3
Does not translate or stops 19
Total 534

The scoreboard lists every example with its status, the signals that differ and the error text, with a link to open it in the workbench.

The MSL accuracy scoreboard: 488 of 534 examples match the reference results, with a breakdown by package

The baseline is docs/conformance/msl-4.1.0.json, made by tools/refcompare.py.

Examples to try

Each link opens the model in the workbench; press ▶ Simulate.

Rotational mechanics: CoupledClutches

Four inertias coupled by three clutches that open and close at set times: a classic test of friction events, stuck and sliding phases.

CoupledClutches diagram
Speeds of the four inertias

Open Modelica.Mechanics.Rotational.Examples.CoupledClutches

Analog electronics: ChuaCircuit

A chaotic oscillator. The second subplot plots C2.v against C1.v to show the double scroll attractor.

ChuaCircuit diagram
Chua attractor

Open Modelica.Electrical.Analog.Examples.ChuaCircuit

Control: PID_Controller

A drive train under a PI speed controller, following a kinematic reference profile while a load step hits it.

PID_Controller diagram
Speeds and controller output

Open Modelica.Blocks.Examples.PID_Controller

Heat transfer: TwoMasses

Two masses at different temperatures that equalize through a thermal conductor.

TwoMasses diagram
Temperatures of the two masses

Open Modelica.Thermal.HeatTransfer.Examples.TwoMasses

MultiBody: DoublePendulum

Two bodies on revolute joints, with the 3-D animation that every MultiBody result gets.

DoublePendulum diagram
DoublePendulum animation

Open Modelica.Mechanics.MultiBody.Examples.Elementary.DoublePendulum

For full vehicle models built on MultiBody, see Multibody vehicles.

How the browser loads it

The MSL sources are not in the repository. At build time, web/scripts/fetch-msl.mjs downloads the v4.1.0 release from GitHub and packs its .mo and package.order files into one gzip bundle (about 2.6 MB; 14.8 MB unpacked) with a content hash in its name. The workbench downloads it after the Daedalus library, unpacks it with DecompressionStream, and registers every file without parsing it. A light token scan outlines each file so the package browser lists the whole library within seconds, and a class is parsed only when it is opened, checked or simulated, together with the classes it needs.

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