An experimental study of on‐line computer control techniques applied to a double pipe heat exchanger

Abstract

Three different on‐line computer control methods, namely the identification and optimizing control technique, the direct design method and the digital form of P‐I‐D control, are applied to control the response of a double pipe heat exchanger. The relative merits of the methods are studied and discussed.

The experimental work is accomplished by the use of a HP‐1000 model 5L microcomputer. A digital voltmeter; the HP‐3456A, is used for reading and transferring data from the process to the computer. A data acquisition system, the HP‐3497A, contains a thermocouple relay and a D/A converter which can read input data from a thermocouple and also convert digital outputs to 4–20 mA signals required by control elements.

Results indicate that the identification and optimizing control technique gives superior performance in most cases, but requires longer computation time. Digital form of the P‐I‐D control requires the least computation time but yields poor performance and is limited in its potential for application to multivariable systems or to tracking problems.

Key Words:

• computer control
• optimizing control
• digital control
• heat exchanger