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GoldSim Example Applications
GoldSim has been applied to many complex problems, spanning a diverse range of applications and industries. The following list contains a number of brief project summaries that help to illustrate the range of problems to which GoldSim can be applied.
You can also learn more by reading several case studies, or by viewing a list of some of our customers' technical papers describing in detail how they have used GoldSim.
Environmental Systems Modeling
Engineered Systems Modeling
Business Modeling
Environmental Systems Modeling
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Simulating the Impact of Water Management Practices on Salmon Populations
The State of California wrestles with a number of complex water resource issues, one of which is sustaining and recovering its diverse fish populations. In order to model the impacts of California's water management strategies on the state's salmon populations, Cramer Fish Sciences used GoldSim to develop a salmon life cycle model. The model forecasted how small changes in various water projects would affect the current and future salmon populations. ►More
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Infectious Disease Transmission
The transfer of pathogens between patients and health care workers in a hospital is an important consideration in developing hospital policies and procedures in order to reduce the related incidences of infection. GoldSim was used to model the transfer of pathogens between patients and health care workers in a hospital. The model generated simulated outbreaks in hospital wards, where the onset, extent of spread, and control of the outbreak is a manifestation of natural variability and the impact of simulated control strategies. ►More
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Environmental Assessment of a Diamond Mine
Before the DeBeers Snap Lake diamond mine was developed, an environmental assessment had to be completed and accepted by the regulatory agencies responsible for project approvals and licensing. GoldSim was used to assess the impacts of mining and site activities on site water quality. By dynamically modeling the physical and chemical processes associated with the movement of chemicals and sediments through the mine system, GoldSim helped to develop of an effective plan to manage water quality. ►More
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Licensing of a Proposed Deep Repository for Spent Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conducted investigations at Yucca Mountain to determine its suitability as a nuclear waste repository of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The Project is using GoldSim to simulate the performance of the proposed radioactive waste repository over the next 10,000 years. GoldSim played a key role in the DOE's successful submission of a formal license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June 2008. ►More
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Health and Environmental Risk Assessment for a Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Facility
GoldSim modelers at Neptune and Company have developed a contaminant transport and regulatory compliance model of a radioactive waste disposal facility at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The model is a management system tool that supports health and environmental risk assessment and effective long-term management of the NTS low-level radioactive waste disposal facilities. The model includes transport of subsurface materials to the ground surface by burrowing animals and the transport of contamination to the surface by plants as well as the classical waterborne transport of radionuclides. ►More |
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Water Supply System Feasibility Assessment
This application supported a technical and financial feasibility assessment for developing a new water supply system for a small city. The GoldSim model was used to investigate in system’s capacity, predict the water-quality of the delivered water, and track costs and schedule for construction and operation of the system. ►More |
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Radionuclide Fate and Transport Modeling at a Uranium Mine Site
A GoldSim model was developed to simulate the fate and transport of radionuclides from a uranium mining facility. The purpose of the model was to assess the impact of a proposed tailing disposal facility on groundwater conditions. From the early phases of the project through detailed technical studies and ultimately to final refinement of the project proposal, GoldSim was used extensively to assess the performance of the facility (relative to regulatory water quality criteria) and direct alternative engineering designs for tailings and waste rock management at closure. ►More |
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Simulating Future Water Demand and Mitigation Requirements for a Growing Municipality
A GoldSim model was used to project the amount of water that would be required to mitigate for the combined fifty year growth demand from a new production well, and to meet instream flow requirements for a nearby river. Model results were used to assist in determining the quantity and timing of mitigation water purchases, and to facilitate negotiations with other stakeholders. ►More |
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Water Quality Modeling for a Proposed Water Supply Project
GoldSim was used to evaluate the feasibility of a water supply project in Canada involving diversion works on a river and water conveyance through pipelines and canals to the headwaters of several creeks. Water would subsequently be made available to the various end-users through existing and proposed canals, natural channels, water supply reservoirs and multi-use projects. Water quality was one of the key issues required to determine the feasibility of the project. GoldSim was used to support a water quality modelling study to assess the suitability of water provided by the proposed project for irrigation use. ►More |
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Simulation of Animal Nutrition
In order to improve the quality of the cows' diet, GoldSim was used to simulate changes in the pasture chemical composition and their effects on the digestion by cows. In particular, the simulation aimed to replicate what happens in the forestomach of a lactating cow, and how the fermentation of the forage affects the amount of protein available to the cow for productive purposes. ►More |
Engineered Systems Modeling
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Long-Term Water Infrastructure Planning for the City of Townsville (Australia)
The City of Townsville is responsible for ensuring the supply of potable water to its constituents. GoldSim modelers at Golder Associates developed a user-friendly, computer-based planning tool capable of modeling existing and planned infrastructure, as well as operational situations. Among other things, the model can be used to optimize water supply reliability and security to urban and industrial customers, and estimate the most cost efficient sequencing of new infrastructure over a 50-year period. ►More
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A System-Level Model for Geological C02 Sequestration
The global warming due to increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is one of most urgent issues that we face today. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a system-level model for geologic sequestration that tracks the fate of CO2 sequested in geologic reservoirs and is designed to include all associated risks. The system-level CO2 sequestration model, called CO2-PENS (Predicting Engineered Natural Systems) uses GoldSim as the upper level platform. ►More |
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Risk and Reliability Analysis for a Lunar Base Station
In this training model, a hypothetical NASA lunar base was simulated for its 20-year design life. Each of the major base subsystems is susceptible to breakdowns, in addition to a variety of disruptive events that could occur. The model illustrates the versatility of the simulation approach for evaluating systems that traditionally might use a fault-tree methodology. ►More |
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Hydropower Plant Simulation
This model simulates the Great Falls Hydropower Plant Project, a series of five hydroelectric dams near Great Falls, Montana. The model incorporates many features present in customized hydroelectric power programs, such as tabulated functions of power, output as a function of turbine flow, and reservoir volume as a function of pool elevation. The model allows the user to experiment with a few operating strategies and evaluate the results in terms of power generation, downstream flows, and pool elevations. ►More |
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Risk and Reliability of an Unmanned Planetary Exploration Mission
In this training model, a hypothetical NASA planetary exploration mission was simulated. The model simulates all of the major components of the mission as it progresses through its phases: launch, interplanetary cruise, orbit insertion, landing, and exploration. The model simulates failure modes for the various mission components along with dynamic behavior such as consumption of propellant for attitude control and the effects of solar flares. ►More |
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Reliability and Throughput of a Mine Ore Processing Facility
The throughput of a mine's processing facilities is affected in complex ways by the reliability and availability of its components. A GoldSim model was constructed to simulate the performance of a mine's crusher system to maximize the financial effectiveness of the maintenance program by capturing a fully-coupled dynamic system with an interplay between the performance of the individual components and the internal and external stockpiles for the ore and concentrate. >>>More |
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Water Management Operations Model for Open-Pit Copper/Zinc Mine
GoldSim was used to build a water management simulator for a large open-pit copper/zinc mine in Peru. The purpose of the model was to provide on-site personnel with a predictive tool to quickly assess the potential impacts of operational changes with respect to environmental compliance. To simplify use of the model for site personnel, a customized user interface is provided to an easy access to define initial conditions and to quickly see important results. ►More |
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Management of Coal Combustion Products at a Coal-Fired Power Plant
GoldSim was used to evaluate the economic and environmental impacts associated with various coal combustion product (CCP) management scenarios at a power plant in North Dakota. Results of the modeling effort led to the development of a long-term comprehensive CCP management plan, which will minimize the impacts on power cost for utility's rate payers. ►More |
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Evaluation of Alternative Closure Strategies for a Smelter Site
GoldSim was used to compare the performance metrics of alternative closure actions for a smelter site and determine the environmental and financial impacts for each of the alternatives. Uncertainty about the closure activities and the system conditions were explicitly represented in the model. Based on the modeling, an alternative plan was developed that would save an estimated $20 million over the projected duration of the closure activities. ►More |
Business Modeling
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Automobile Supply Chain Demonstration Model
This model (available in the GoldSim Model Library) demonstrates how GoldSim can be applied to supply chain management. This particular model includes sub-models for demand forecasting, material management, production scheduling, manufacturing, and delivery management. The external driver to the system is the rate at which dealers order new vehicles. The model allows you to experiment with various dealer order scenarios. The objective of this simplified model was to demonstrate the impacts of several key information delays within the system, and determine whether implementing procedures to reduce these delays would significantly improve overall performance. ►More
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Pricing Mechanisms in Packet-Switched Communication Networks
In recent years, several pricing models which address the problem of Internet congestion have been studied. Pricing models can be studied and evaluated through simulation. Communication networks are typically simulated using discrete event and queuing systems. A GoldSim model was built in which the traffic in the communication network was represented as a flow of data between network nodes, demonstrating that a system dynamics approach to simulation of such systems is viable and has some distinct advantages. ►More |
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Simulating an Entire Market: Long-Haul Trucks
The objective of this model was to better understand the dynamics of the long-haul truck market. In particular, how would decisions regarding new truck pricing impact future truck sales and prices? How would the current system likely to evolve over the next few years? In order to answer these questions the model was constructed to simulate the number of active and used trucks in each age category, the price of new and used trucks, and the sales rate of new trucks, all as a function of time. ►More |
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Economic Analysis of Manufacturing Business Opportunities
The Centre for Automotive Materials and Manufacturing (CAMM) at Queens University coupled GoldSim with spreadsheet models to develop a platform for supporting supply chain design and management, and carrying out economic analysis of manufacturing business opportunities. The example discussed here applies the approach to a polymer component plant. ►More
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Yellowstone National Park Strategic Planning
As part of the Greater Yellowstone Works project, GoldSim was used as part of the decision making process to evaluate alternatives on a range of issues, such as simulation of traffic flow through the North Loop in the Canyon area and examination of the impacts on infrastructure demands due to changes in the number of visitors and concessionaires. ►More
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Strategic Planning for an Industrial Water Treatment Facility
An industrial facility was faced with the problem of upgrading their effluent treatment technology in order to stay within regulatory compliance. The process of upgrading the facility was quite complex and expensive and a total of nine of these strategies were defined and analyzed by simulating each of them using GoldSim. ►More |
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