Abstract
A sliding-block supersonic wind tunnel, installed t hirty years ago at GE Global Research, was a major workhorse for nearly a decade despite the inefficiencies of its original manual control system. Recently, a decision was made to up date its control system from an analog system to a modern proportional-integral-derivative system. The existing pressure control system of the wind tunnel is investigated to evalua te its reliability and hysteresis. The relationship between the output signal of the contr ol algorithm and the response of the throttling valve is examined. The theory of proport ional-integral-derivative control is presented and previous applications are discussed. A programmable logic controller is used to replace the original control system and utilizes EZAutomation software to implement proportional-integral-derivative control. Technique s of programming the feedback loop, TouchPLC hardware, and internal software are discussed. Methods of loop tuning are described and experimental results are presented.
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