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Add District Heating and Cooling models

Created by: marcusfuchs

Update

We are trying to make a renewed effort to add DHC models to AixLib, concentrating our previous activities from different projects.

This issue will be the central reference for a branch issue403_dhc, in which we will continue our development until a first version is ready for merging to the development branch. We may require different feature branches that first merge to issue403_dhc. We'll use separate issues and PRs to issue403_dhc for this. In this issue, we will try to keep an overview of current activities.

Feel free to participate. Currently, @MichaMans @TobiasBlacha and me are working on this topic.

First steps are:

  • Merge new IBPSA pipe model via development in #515
  • Create reference models for supply line networks
  • Continue with closed loop system models

What is the problem?

  • Assembling district heating and cooling network models from components on only one hierarchical level will probably be cumbersome, especially if we want to have different models to represent the networks with different levels of detail. Therefore, I propose to add base classes as containers for supply nodes, demand nodes, and pipe elements.

Why do we want to solve it?

  • Such containers for the basic building blocks of DHC systems will hopefully provide an easy-to-use interface to model DHC systems in a large variety of setups.

How do we want to solve it?

#402 (closed) already adds a first reference network for hydraulic validation. Continuing this work, I'll add the base classes, a very simple first implementation of each network component, and an example recreating the reference network using the newly introduced modules. This may also show some need to modify the models added in #402 (closed).