Big Deal - anyone could solve this? I don't.

I have a system with seven tanqs (T1...T7). And I have 5 origins with water ( W1......W5)
I need to have a priority... W1 is the origin with more flow rate... second W2 and so one.

I need to make a automatic system to fill automatly all tanqs. I have a manifold with 5X7 valves.

How can I start this problem?

Thanks,

António Silva

Just a quick system analysis:

- 7 tanks that will request a refill at random time and order
-5 watersupplies that are available or not at random time and order

This is the context of the 'system' you need to design. What will it do? It will distribute the water on request. Let's call it an WaterDistributionManager. What means does it have to do so? It willhave 5 inlet valves and 7 outletvalves. What logic is needed/smartest to distribute the water in the most efficient way? The #1 inlet has the biggest capacity, so for the shortest tank-fill-time, it is the best choice. Then the #2, #3 etc.

If the WaterDistributionManager is to decide which tank has to be filled from which water inlet it needs to know:

- which tank puts out a request to be filled
- which water inlet is available atany givenmoment

When a tank issues a request, the WaterDistributionManager will select a water inlet and allocate inlet and outlet valve, thus creating a route for the water. It will continue to do so untill the request is satisfied (tank has been filled: this is for the tank to 'decide').
If multiple requests are issued, the WaterDistributionManager will allocate additional inlet valves based on the logic you designed. How simple or complex the logic has to be, is up to you.
Simple; first one to come, first one to serve. Or a bit more sophisticated; in order of highest volumetric capacity maybe with things like hydraulic behaviour taken into account. If the request also contains information like priority, amount of volume to fill, preferred supplie line etc. the allocation logic of the WaterDistributionManager can be made rather complex/sophisticated.

Also you've go to think about: what if a higher capacity inlet is released (after the tank it served has been filled) while a lower capacity inlet is still serving another tank: will the higher capacity inlet take over (re-allocation) to speed up the filling? Do you optimize for shortest fill time?Do you optimizefor simultanious filling? It's up to you to decide based on engineering restrictions/requirements (make sure these are clear to you and your customer).

If you find it difficult to analyse a problem like this from scratch,I would recommend to do a course in system analysis with Yourdon or Hatley&Phirbai methodology. If you want to know more about that subject, go here http://www.yourdon.com/jesa/jesa.phpand fill it in to download a complete book on structured system analysis.

HJ