Soft QCD models and general-purpose Monte Carlo simulation

We begin with a brief description of the main building blocks of Monte Carlo event generators (MCEG) for the full simulation of hadron–hadron collisions. Next, we focus on soft QCD models and in particular on Multiple Partonic Interaction (MPI) models that are implemented in MCEG. Finally, we present a comparison of three main Monte Carlo event generators, Herwig++, PYTHIA and SHERPA, and also a cosmic-rays model EPOS to a range of LHC data sets which are sensitive to the MPI activity.