Active control for system with multiple microchannel heat exchangers using disturbance observer

Abstract

To prevent flow maldistribution and imbalanced temperature, a disturbance observer-based control strategy is presented for microchannel cooling systems with multiple heat exchangers. A disturbance observer is designed using the extended Kalman filter for estimating the states and disturbance. The performance of the observer is validated using experimental data from a pumped liquid cycle testbed. Disturbance observer-based control is applied to systems with two and three heat exchangers. The findings demonstrate that the wall temperatures and the temperature differences for the heat exchangers could be maintained at the desired values. When the heat exchangers are subjected to heat loads in the form of square, sinusoidal, and sawtooth functions, the temperature fluctuation could be suppressed by 60%-80% and the temperatures could be maintained at the same values. Our research demonstrates that the proposed control strategy has acceptable accuracy and robustness for the system with multiple heat exchangers undergoing various operating situations.

Keywords:

• Active control
• disturbance observer
• extended Kalman filter
• microchannel cooling
• multiple heat exchangers

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This article is supported by the Young Teacher Development Fund (AQ08998) from School of Energy and Power Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology.