How GoldSim Inserts Events into a Simulation

When a discrete event is generated in GoldSim by certain types of elements (e.g., a Timed Event, an Event Delay, or a Discrete Change Delay), the events may not fall exactly on a “scheduled” timestep (i.e., a timestep that was defined in the Time tab of the Simulation Settings dialog). That is, the events may actually occur between scheduled timesteps.

These events trigger an “unscheduled update” of the model. Unscheduled updates are timesteps that are dynamically inserted by GoldSim during the simulation in order to more accurately simulate the system. That is, they are not specified directly prior to running the model. GoldSim inserts them automatically (and, generally, without you needing to be aware of it).

For example, if you had specified a one day timestep, and a Timed Event occurs at 33.65 days (i.e., between the scheduled one-day updates), GoldSim would insert an unscheduled update at 33.65 days.

By default, scheduled updates are always dynamically inserted by GoldSim. However, in some (rare) cases, you may want to prevent unscheduled updates from being inserted. For example, if your model included a specialized algorithm that was designed based on the assumption that the timestep was constant, inserting unscheduled updates could invalidate the algorithm. To support such situations, GoldSim allows you to disable unscheduled updates.

Warning: Because unscheduled updates are intended to more accurately represent a complex dynamic system, disabling this feature should be done with caution, and is generally not recommended.