Material Delay Elements

Material Delay elements are intended to be used to simulate delays in the physical movement (flow) of material. These delays often have a critical impact in the dynamic behavior of systems.

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You would use a Material Delay element to simulate processes like the movement of parts on a conveyor belt, the flow of water through an aquifer, the movement of cars from one location to another, and the movement of letters through the mail system.

Material is conserved as it moves through a Material Delay. In some cases, the material may be dispersed while in transit. For example, if you send 100 letters all at once, they will not be delivered at the same time. Rather, there will be some variability in the time at which they are delivered (i.e., the delay time).

In other cases, the material is not dispersed. If a conveyor belt moves at a fixed speed, there will be no variability in the transit times for items that are placed on the conveyor.

The properties dialog for a Material Delay element looks like this:

A Material Delay requires one or more Inflows and a Delay Time. You can optionally define the degree of Dispersion.

The element has two outputs: the primary output of the Material Delay is the lagged flow (the Outflow), which has the same dimensions and order as the Inflow. The secondary output is the amount of material in transit within the Material Delay.

The best way to understand how to use Material Delays is to examine the behavior of the element in a number of simple examples. A file containing these examples (MaterialDelay.gsm) can be found in the General Examples folder in your GoldSim directory (accessed by selecting File | Open Example... from the main menu).