Snapshot 1: all buffers have a small exogenous input and therefore are eventually empty
Snapshot 2: eventually buffers 1 and 2 are full and buffer 3 is empty
Snapshot 3: all buffers have a large exogenous input and therefore are eventually full
You can think of this network as three funnels that are connected to each other with pipes.
A funnel symbolizes the node including its buffer.
The size of the hole at the bottom of the funnel defines how much fluid per time unit can leave the funnel. (In this Demonstration each node (funnel) can process 1.1 fluid per time unit.)
The size of the funnel itself defines how much material it could contain before it starts overflowing. (In this Demonstration the buffer capacity is 1.)
Each node receives an exogenous input. This exogenous input can be symbolized with a tap that pours fluid into the funnel.
The pipes transport fluid from one funnel to another and symbolize the routing in the network. These pipes transport fluid that leaves the hole at the bottom of the funnel but they also transport fluid that overflows (if the funnel is full).
This Demonstration shows the effect of changing the exogenous inputs on the behavior of the buffers. If you pour more fluid into the buffer, do the buffers fill up or empty?
The effect of changing the initial amount of material inside the buffers is also shown.
Fluid that is processed by a node is routed to another node according to the routing matrix
entry of this matrix defines what proportion of the fluid goes to node
after the material is processed by node
. Thus from the fluid that is processed by node 1, 0.1 goes to node 2, 0.1 goes to node 3, and 0.8 leaves the network.
The fluid that could not enter a buffer is routed to another node according to routing matrix
. Here the
entry defines what proportion goes to node
after the fluid could not enter buffer
because it was full. For example, in this network 0.7 of the fluid that overflows at node 1 is routed to node 2 and 0.2 is routed to node 3. The remaining 0.1 leaves the system.