The Examples of Applications of the Agent Systems - A Perspective on Agent Systems - page 124

In order to control the cooling process of the cast, the mould cooling systems are
used as well as special cooling pipes are placed in the mould. The medium circulating
in the pipes cools down the metal around the pipe. The temperature of the cooling
medium at the input of the pipe and the rate of the flow constitute the parameters that
control the cooling rate of the cast. The cooling pipes may be placed in the areas in
which the outflow of the heat is slower than on the surface (these are usually points
further the edges of the form) (Fig. 5.29 point p 1 and point p 2 ).
The exemplary conformation of the mould with the cooling pipe ( R )isshownin
Fig. 5.29 a. The cooling pipe affects the cooling rate of the cast at the point p 1 and
makes it possible to ensure the same cooling rate as at the point p 2 .
Figure 5.29 b illustrates the representation of the mould with the use of the environ-
ment of the network. For the simulation of the process of the cooling medium flow,
which absorbs the heat from the surrounding metal, the agents were used (according
to the concept described in Sect. 5.5.2 ).
In the schema presented in Fig. 5.29 b, the agents move along the established
trajectory which represents the location of the cooling pipe. The agents responsible
for the transport of parameters of the cooling medium between the nodes are placed
in the nodes of the grid which lie on the trajectory.
The agent A is inserted into the node corresponding to the inlet of the cooling pipe.
This agent has the information about the parameters (in particular about temperature)
of the cooling medium at the input of the conformation.
The agent that is already in the node observes the arrival of a new agent. As a result
of these observations, the agent starts its activity of fetching information describing
the state of the medium at the point corresponding to this node and transports it to

t=2 t=8

Fig. 5.30 The example of the simulation of the cooling process of the cast in the mould with the
cooling pipe [17]