Model and Hardware Development for Predictive Plume Control in Pipe Lines

The problem of model reference predictive control for eliminating contaminant cloud from a pipe fluid system by boundary control action is addressed. A lab-scale pipe fluid system prototype is developed for studying the control of fluid system. Experimental results validate the possibility of eliminating the contaminant cloud by boundary control. A model reference control architecture is constructed, in which a parameterizable reduced order mathematical model for simulating fluid particle path-lines is developed. Compared to traditional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method, this reduced order model can be solved within very short time by common Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) solver which enables the implementation of iterative optimal control.