As computer application came into popular use, computer simulation has become an indispensable means of efficient research, development and design in the fields of various products and systems. Fuji Electric started developing the simulation of control systems in the middle of the 1950s and has expanded the scope of application to process control, factory automation, electrical products, electronic parts, and electronic systems. This paper gives an outline of typical simulation technologies, their applications and tendencies in various fields.

The simulation of waterworks aims to support the design and operation of waterworks equipment. Recently, offers of computer systems including simulation programs to users have been increasing. Typical uses of simulation are water distribution control and water operations. The latest examples are a water operation system for advanced water treatment and the analysis of contamination diffusion in a water distribution network. Essential subjects in the future development are simulation technology concerning water quality and man-machine interface technology.

Power load density has been increasing and high-quality power supply has been demanded in city areas. Fuji Electric has developed a new voltage and power control method for the improvement of reliability, controllability, economical efficiency and power supply quality required in functional 400V network distribution system in future.
This paper describes the control algorithm of 400V network power flow and the result of the simulation case study of control system behavior with our program which includes 400V network and control system model.

To meet qualitative requirements for large-capacity steam turbine operating reliability, Fuji Electric jointly with Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc., taking the new 600MW turbine of Noshiro Thermal power Plant Unit No.1 as an object of study, developed an estimation system for turbine operating reliability using the numerical simulation of operating characteristics such as rotor vibration and the difference of expansion with a computer. This paper introduces an outline of the system.

The electromagnetic transients program (EMTP) is a general-purpose transient-phenomenon analysis program developed by Bonneville Power Administration of DOE, USA. This paper describes examples of its applications to transient phenomena in power systems: analysis of a lightning surge into a substation, analysis of the installation effect of a transmission-line arrester, and analysis of a multiple re-ignition phenomenon in a vacuum circuit breaker.

Various methods had been used to design rotating machines. As computer-aided magnetic-field analysis attained a practical level, simulation has come into ordinary use as a means of design. This paper summarizes the finite element method most frequently used to analyze magnetic problems and introduces practical applications to 3-dimensional field analysis of the end region of a turbogenerator and 2-dimensional analyses of a small motor for hard disk drive and an AC servomotor.

Disaster-preventive substations using gas-insulated transformers instead of conventional oil-immersed ones have been increasing to improve the reliability, installation space labor-saving in maintenance and nonflammability of power supply facilities. Cooling characteristics is essential for gas-insulated transformers. To prevent local overheat and raise cooling efficiency, temperature distribution simulations need to be reflected in design. We grasped temperature distribution in internal gas and windings applying flow and heat transfer analysis by a finite element method to the whole cooling system of a gas-insulated transformer.

In the production process of highly integrated semiconductors such as 64M-bit dynamic random access memories, various automated systems have been introduced to realize ultraclean rooms, while there is a possibility that cleanliness is disturbed by the equipment itself. An example of this is air-flow disturbance caused by an automatic guided vehicle (AGV). Two-dimensional nonstationary finite element analysis was applied with a good result to air flow around an AGV starting with constant acceleration, running at a constant speed and stopping with constant deceleration.

As an example of our real-time simulation technology for FA systems, this paper introduces a POP system that links PROMIZ, an FA simulator, and P-codes, an automatic recognition system.
It was a point for real-time simulation how to input the initial distribution of a production condition. In this case, data input was realized by linking up with real-time progress-control data using P-codes that make space-saving writing possible. A POP system for an assembly line of printed-circuit boards is cited as an application.

This paper summarizes numerical methods of heat transfer and thermal stress analyses and introduces applications of these methods to semiconductor devices and equipment. Thermal stress induced in the soldered boundary layer of Cu and ceramic plates is examined by transient heat transfer analysis and linear thermal stress analysis. Thermal stress in direct bonded Cu and ceramic plates due to the thermal history of a component production process is examined by elastic and elastoplastic analyses. Thermal stress in a MOSFET array in operation is estimated.

The simulation technology of power semiconductor devices has been an indispensable means of improving performance and development efficiency such as the characteristics estimation and optimum design of a new semiconductor.
Attempts have been made recently to find out the characteristics of the very device composed of more than one semiconductor element exactly using device simulation, being noticed as a new trend. This paper gives an outline of this recent trend.

The application of simulation with computer-aided design has become indispensable to the design and verification of printed-circuit boards.
This paper, placing emphasis on logical simulation, gives a description of its application method, effects and limitations, importance of parts library, and a guide for the future.

For the development of a high-speed Japanese OCR, the simulation of character recognition is indispensable to the verification of a character recognition algorithm. This paper introduces the simulation results concerning the selection of identifying features and the effectiveness of nonlinear normalization with space density. As the result of handwritten kanji recognition, the future of 8 background components had a high recognition rate. Also, nonlinear normalization had a higher rate than conventional methods. The problems of a Japanese OCR and our tackling them are described too.