Svingen Tech

Svingen Tech is the name of the company housing LVTrans (this web site essentially). dr.ing Bjørnar Svingen made the first version of  LVTrans in LabVIEW in 2001 within a couple of hours as a "quick and dirty" MOC solver for one single pipe (MOC = the Method of Characteristics). It was used for acoustic calculations of gas risers in the North Sea*. From there it was used in several projects in the oil business for a few years, and was developed and extended all along.

In 2003 Statkraft and Sira-Kvina, both hydro power utility companies, got involved with several projects, and LVTrans gradually became tuned towards transient simulations of hydro power plants, incorperating all the necessary elements (turbines, tunnels, surge shafts, PIDs etc). The turbine element is rather special. It uses the physical model by Professor Nielsen, and does not need any tables that are impossible to get hold of in any case.

From 2005/2006 and after, LVTrans have been used almost exclusively on hydro power plants. It is the main simulation program used by Statkraft, and is the core of a predictive governor use to control Tonstad power plant (4x160 MW + 1x320 MW). The predictive governor has been in operation continuously since 2014, and is a key component for fast and accurate balancing power between hydropower in Norway and wind power in Denmark and Germany. LVTRans is also the main simulation software for Hymatek Controls, and has been used for several years by Rainpower. It is used by students at NTNU, and in lectures about transients in hydro power.

A key element of LVTrans is LabVIEW by National Instruments. LabVIEW enables an engineer or scientist to focus on the engineering problem - the science and equations, while all the graphical user interface quirks, as well as low level hardware IO, are already taken care of by LabVIEW. This is true for pure software development as well as complex predictive real-time systems controlling entire power plants.

A blog about hydraulic transients can be found here.

However, the "wire programming" of LabVIEW is not the most intuitive way of doing core numerical computations. Further, a proprietary programming language with binary source files, as is the case for LabVIEW, is not the most practical solution for an open source program, or when trying to reach a broader audience. Therefore a core numerical C++ library is the next step in development from 2023 and forward**. This C++ library is "plugged" straight into existing LabVIEW LVTrans source files, enabled by the special object oriented MOC (Method Of Characteristic) procedure used in LVTrans. This opens up a range of other possibilities, with and without LabVIEW as HMI or IO for embedded systems.

The way forward is therefore LabVIEW as HMI/IO as before. The C++ library will be a stand alone "engine" for MOC. Thus it can be used with LVTrans or any other HMI that people may create in other languages. The name of this library is likely to be CMOCE (C++ Method Of Characteristics Engine), pronounces smoke as in a smoking gun, or a pipe...

As of October 2023, the light-weight and open source IDE previously used for the C++ code is no longer maintained. Still looking for a good alternative. 

The license of LVTrans is owned by dr.ing Bjørnar Svingen and by SINTEF Energy. The license is a BSD license.

*   Acoustics in gas pipelines is matematically equivalent to general transients in liquid-filled pipelines.

**  This has been partially done, on and off, all since 2001. However, the end conclusion has always landed on "pure native LabVIEW code" as the best due to several considerations, which since 2022 no longer exist.