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Reliability Hotwire: Modeling a Ring Network Topology in BlockSim 10

Reliability HotWire is a monthly eMagazine by ReliaSoft providing information and tips on how to best improve your reliability practices and get the most out of ReliaSoft’s tools for reliability and life data analysis. This two-part article will address how to use BlockSim 10 to create a reliability block diagram (RBD) model of a ring network with bi-directional communication paths.

Hotwire

When designing a control system, a major consideration is the topology of the computer network that will be used to communicate between the human-machine interface (HMI) and the controlled devices. There are many topologies in use today, such as point-to-point, bus, star, ring, mesh, and hybrid networks. In order to select the best topology for the control system, it is necessary to understand the benefits and risks associated with each type of network topology. By modeling proposed network configurations in BlockSim, the analyst can predict the availability of each topology before the control system design is finalised.

The first part discusses how to create the system-level RBD model starting from the ring network schematic. The subsequent article will demonstrate how to augment the model to incorporate blocks that represent the state of communication between the HMI and each connected device.

For part one of this article, view: Reliability Hotwire – Issue 188 October 2016

For part two of this article, view: Reliability Hotwire – Issue 189 November 2016

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