Temperature control of a solar furnace

Author

Berenguel, M. ; Camacho, E.F. ; Garcia-Martin, F.J. ; Rubio, E.R.

Author_Institution

Dept. de Lenguajes y Comput., Almeria Univ., Spain

Volume

19

Issue

1

fYear

1999

fDate

2/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

8

Lastpage

24

Abstract

An application of an automatic control strategy to a solar plant for material treatment has been shown. Since these kinds of plants are manually operated by skilled operators, the development of an automatic control strategy aimed at achieving adequate results throughout the wide range of operating conditions, under which these plants operate, represents an important improvement towards facilitating operation and obtaining desired performance. The control scheme presented is based on a PI controller which incorporates feedforward compensation, an anti-windup mechanism and actuator slew rate constraint handling, both in fixed and self-tuning configurations. It has been developed and applied to the control of a solar furnace for samples of different materials under extreme temperature profiles. Different plant results have been shown and both advantages and drawbacks of the scheme have been commented on

Keywords

adaptive control; compensation; feedforward; furnaces; heat treatment; self-adjusting systems; solar heating; temperature control; two-term control; PI controller; actuator slew rate constraint handling; anti-windup mechanism; automatic control strategy; extreme temperature profiles; feedforward compensation; fixed configuration; material treatment; self-tuning configuration; solar furnace control; temperature control; Adaptive control; Ceramics; Control systems; Furnaces; Nonlinear control systems; Optical materials; Solar energy; Steel; Temperature control; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Control Systems, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1066-033X

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/37.745762

Filename

745762