Study on predictive functional control of an expansion valve for controlling the evaporator superheat

Abstract

A new method is proposed to control the evaporator superheat with an electronic expansion valve. The conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control with invariable parameters cannot show good performance because of the variation of refrigeration unit parameters under disturbances. To solve this problem, this paper presents a method for the use of predictive functional controllers (PFCs) on superheat of an evaporator. This method is based on a physical model of the appliance studied to allow calculation of parameters needed for the use of PFCs. The control system created is incorporated into an industrial programmable logic controller and used for experiments on a refrigerating machine containing a shell and tubes evaporator with R410A as refrigerant fluid. The comparison between the two types of controller, i.e. PID and PFC, indicates that superheat may be more efficiently controlled by using the latter type of controller: the setting value is only slightly exceeded, there are only small oscillations of measured superheat, and the energy efficiency of the refrigeration unit may be improved.

Keywords

refrigerating machine predictive control shell and tubes evaporator heat transfer

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Outtagarts

Haberschill

Lallemand

Etude de lois de commande adaptatives utilisables pour des détendeurs électroniques de machines frigorifiques. In Proceedings of the 19th International Congress on Refrigeration, B2, La Haye, Netherlands, 1995, pp. 421–428.

Chen

Zhijiu

Zhu

Ruiqi

Yezheng.

Experimental investigation of a minimum stable superheat control system of an evaporator. Int. J. Refrigeration, 2002, 25, 1137–1142.

Jin-Long

Lin

Yeh

T.-J.

Modeling, identification and control of air-conditioning systems. Int. J. Refrigeration, 2007, 30, 209–220.

Jin-Long

Lin

Yeh

T.-J.

Identification and control of multi-evaporator air-conditioning systems. Int. J. Refrigeration, 2007, 30, 1374–1385.

Rui Qi

Zhu

Xiao Qing

Zheng

Zheng Wu.

Fuzzy-PID methods for controlling evaporator superheat. In Proceedings of the Eighth International Refrigeration Conference, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, 25–28 July 2000, pp. 337–344.

Xingxi

Zhou

Jing

Xia

Xinqiao

Jin

Zifeng

Zhou.

Study on fuzzy control of the electronic valve in the air-conditioner with inverter. In Proceedings of the 20th International Congress on Refrigeration, IIR/IIF, Sydney, Australia, 1999, vol. III, 6 pp.

Nanayakkara

V. K.

Ikegami

Uehara

Evolutionary design of dynamic neural networks for evaporator control. Int. J. Refrigeration, 2002, 25, 813–826.

Richalet

Pratique de la commande prédictive, 1993, 352 pp. (Hermès éditions, Paris).

Richalet

Lavielle

Mallet

La commande prédictive — mise en æuvre et applications industrielles, 2004, 272 pp. (Eyrolles éditions, Paris).

10.

Clarke

D. W.

Mohtadi

Tuffs

P. S.

Generalized predictive control — Part I: The basic algorithm. Automatica, 1987, 23, 137–148.

11.

Abdelghani-Idrissi

M. A.

Arbaoui

M. A.

Estel

Richalet

Predictive functional control of a counter current heat exchanger using convexity property. Chem. Engng and Processing, 2001, 40, 449–457.

12.

Pérez de la Parte

Camacho

E. F.

Application of a predictive sliding mode controller to a heat exchanger. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Control applications, Glasgow, 2002, pp. 1219–1224.

13.

Arbaoui

M. A.

Vernieres-Hassimi

Seguin

Abdelghani-Idrissi

M. A.

Counter-current tubular heat exchanger: Modeling and adaptive predictive functional control. Appl. Thermal Engng, 2007, 27(13), 2332–2338.

14.

Outtagarts

Haberschill

Lallemand

Comportement dynamique d'un évaporateur de machine frigorifique soumis à des variations de débit. In Proceedings of the 19th International Congress on Refrigeration, B2, La Haye, Netherlands, 1995, pp. 413–420.

15.

Finn

D. P.

Doyle

C. J.

A BEMS-integrated electronic expansion valve for real-time optimisation of refrigerant evaporation. In Proceedings of the 20th International Congress on Refrigeration, IIR/IIF, Sydney, Australia, 1999, vol. III, 8 pp.

16.

17.

Holman

J. P.

Heat transfer, 7th edition, 1989, 676 pp. (McGraw-Hill, New York).

18.

Kern

D. Q.

Process Heat Transfer. International student edition, 1950, 871 pp. (McGraw-Hill, New York).

19.

Gnielinski

New equation for heat and mass transfer in turbulent pipe and channel flow. Int. Chem. Engng, 1976, 16(2), 359–368.

20.

Chen

J. C.

A correlation for boiling heat transfer to satured fluids in convective flow. Ind. Engng Chem. Process and Development, 1966, 5(3), 322–329.

21.

Shah

M. M.

Chart correlation for saturated boiling heat transfer: Equations and further studies. ASHRAE Trans., 1982, 88(1), 185–196.

22.

Dhar

P. L.

Jain

V. K.

On evaluation of correlations for prediction of heat transfer coefficient in nucleate flow boiling. Int. J. Heat and Mass Transfer, 1982, 25(8), 1250–1251.

23.

Gungor

K. E.

Winterton

R. H. S.

A general correlation for flow boiling in tubes and annuli. Int. J. Heat and Mass Transfer, 1986, 29(3), 351–358.

24.

Liu

Winterton

R. H. S.

A general correlation for saturated and subcooled flow boiling in tubes and annuli, based on a nucleate pool boiling equation. Int. J. Heat and Mass Transfer, 1991, 34(11), 2759–2766.

25.

Park

Cho

Lee

Kim

Mass flow characteristics and empirical modeling of R22 and R410A flowing through electronic expansion valves. Int. J. Refrigeration, 2007, 30, 1401–1407.