Date of Award
12-2025
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Mechanical Engineering
Committee Chair/Advisor
John Wagner
Committee Member
Gregory Mocko
Committee Member
Cameron Turner
Committee Member
Laura Redmond
Abstract
The characterization of systems encompasses a variety of modeling frameworks designed to capture specific behaviors and components of various system domains. Whatever the framework, the core elements of a system representation are the information of the system and a description of how that information is related. The relations in deterministic systems are functions, which, when composed to form executable processes, can be used to simulate system data. A declarative modeling framework is one that encodes mechanisms for preparing these simulations within the model structure, allowing an external agent to form the execution processes required for a given context. To date, no declarative modeling framework has been proposed that allows for these processes to be discovered for any system across any domain. In this dissertation, a new framework called a constraint hypergraph is proposed that provides universal, declarative modeling. System behavior is embedded in this framework as paths through the hypergraph. Simulating a system represented with a constraint hypergraph can be accomplished by an autonomous agent capable of discovering these paths. This, combined with the graphical nature of the framework, allows system information to be interrogated autonomously across domains, enabling multiphysics, multiscale modeling and simulation of complex systems. Applications of this framework are shown to model-based engineering platforms and digital twins. The former is given by showing how updatable digital threads can be traced throughout a data ecosystem, including across analysis software platforms such as CAD and FEA tools. Constraint hypergraphs are also shown to provide a robust foundation for creating digital twins, leading to twins that are usable, interoperable, maintainable, and verifiable. These applications are demonstrated using custom algorithms published in the open-source package ConstraintHg.
Recommended Citation
Morris, John, "Universal Systems Simulation via Constraint Hypergraphs with Applications to Digital Twins" (2025). All Dissertations. 4127.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4127
Author ORCID Identifier
0009-0005-6571-1959
Included in
Computational Engineering Commons, Computer-Aided Engineering and Design Commons, Computer and Systems Architecture Commons, Databases and Information Systems Commons, Dynamical Systems Commons, Dynamic Systems Commons, Numerical Analysis and Computation Commons, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Commons, Systems Architecture Commons, Theory and Algorithms Commons