Implementation of an easily reconfigurable dynamic simulator for recirculating aquaculture systems

•A Programmable Process Structure based general RAS model has been developed.•The model has been implemented and validated for a pilot RAS with Common carp.•A new model of Single Tank with Simulated Increasing Volume has been developed.•Control and design application of this new approach has been analyzed.•The method has been tested by simulation of the generated multi-grade model. Methodology of Programmable Process Structures has been implemented and applied for the flexible automatic generation and simulation of Recirculating Aquaculture Systems. First, we implemented and validated the model for a pilot unit, based on short time experiments with Common carp (Cyprinus carpio), utilizing data and functionalities from the literature. Afterwards, starting from this model we generated a hypothetical single tank model of simulated increasing volume, to demonstrate how it supports the simplified, preliminary analysis, design and control of the possible multi-stage systems. We showed that the simulation of a single tank with an appropriately increasing volume makes possible to study the various control strategies, as well as to design the structure and the grading strategy of the multi-stage systems, without an increased combinatorial complexity. In the knowledge of the simulated increasing volume, we determined the volumes of subsequent stages by equidistant partitioning of the rearing time, algorithmically. Considering the available (or planned) tank volumes, this method makes possible to design a multi-stage system that approximately corresponds to the previously optimized single tank model. This conclusion was illustrated by the generation and simulation of the model for the respective multi-stage system.