Entropy 2016, 18(11), 398; https://doi.org/10.3390/e18110398
Fractional-Order Identification and Control of Heating Processes with Non-Continuous Materials
1
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering, University of Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, 95125 Catania, Italy
2
Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Politecnico di Bari, Via Amendola 126/b, 70126 Bari, Italy
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Academic Editors: António M. Lopes and J. A. Tenreiro Machado
Received: 26 September 2016 / Revised: 4 November 2016 / Accepted: 9 November 2016 / Published: 12 November 2016
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Complex Systems and Fractional Dynamics)
Abstract
The paper presents a fractional order model of a heating process and a comparison of fractional and standard PI controllers in its closed loop system. Preliminarily, an enhanced fractional order model for the heating process on non-continuous materials has been identified through a fitting algorithm on experimental data. Experimentation has been carried out on a finite length beam filled with three non-continuous materials (air, styrofoam, metal buckshots) in order to identify a model in the frequency domain and to obtain a relationship between the fractional order of the heating process and the different materials’ properties. A comparison between the experimental model and the theoretical one has been performed, proving a significant enhancement of the fitting performances. Moreover the obtained modelling results confirm the fractional nature of the heating processes when diffusion occurs in non-continuous composite materials, and they show how the model’s fractional order can be used as a characteristic parameter for non-continuous materials with different composition and structure. Finally, three different kinds of controllers have been applied and compared in order to keep constant the beam temperature constant at a fixed length. View Full-TextKeywords:
Fractional order systems; modeling; control; optimization; heat transfer; non-continuous materials
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MDPI and ACS Style
Caponetto, R.; Sapuppo, F.; Tomasello, V.; Maione, G.; Lino, P. Fractional-Order Identification and Control of Heating Processes with Non-Continuous Materials. Entropy 2016, 18, 398.
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