Heating Control Research Articles

Heating Rate Control in Electric Furnace with SSR and K-Type Thermocouple Using Arduino Uno Atmega 328P

Electric furnace is a tool that can be used to melt, heat, and change the physical shape of a substance. Electric furnaces sold in the market are still relatively expensive, therefore it is necessary to make an electric furnace at a low cost. This research designed an electric furnace using a K-type thermocouple sensor as a temperature reader and SSR relay as an ON/OFF heater  control .  Keypad serves to enter the temperature value in the heating furnace. The heating element used is 1 mm in diameter and 1.86 ohm resistance with a load of 21 Ampere, capable of heating a C1 type refractory brick furnace that has been tested to a temperature of 1000 OC. The results of temperature reading sensitivity tests against the type-K thermocouple sensor get a coefficient value of 0.99893, this indicates that the thermocouple sensor is worth using. From the electric furnace test thermocouple sensor has an average accuracy rate of 92.07%, as well as errors worth 7.93%. While there is a precision value of 98.786% which shows the system works optimally.

Modeling and control of a flexible electric resistance heater coupled to a steel plate

Modeling and control of a flexible electric resistance heater coupled to a steel plate

Carbon Reduction Potential through Optimal Control of Grid Interactive Heat Pump Water Heaters across the United States

Carbon Reduction Potential through Optimal Control of Grid Interactive Heat Pump Water Heaters across the United States

Aggregation model of various demand-side energy resources in the day-ahead electricity market and imbalance pricing system

We propose a tool for aggregating a large number of buildings’ electricity demand and photovoltaic (PV) generation, controllable heat pump water heaters (HPWH) and electric vehicles (EV) to minimize the procurement cost in a market transaction consisting of a day-ahead market and an imbalance pricing system. The novelty of this research is that the aggregator's strategy can be modeled including various uncertainties, and the value of multiple demand-side resources (DSRs) can be quantified within realistic market rules. The model shows that the ability to control the imbalance through real-time control of DSRs has significant economic benefits. In the control of HPWH hot water storage operation, the procurement cost can be reduced by 13% compared to nighttime operation when the same number of units are installed as the aggregate target rooftop PV and residential demand. The electric vehicle storage battery charge/discharge control can reduce the total cost by 38% compared to nighttime charging under the same conditions. The impact of the PV-prediction error on the procurement cost was found to be generally larger than those of other parameters, and the market-price-prediction error was found to be considerably large during EV charging and discharging optimization. Furthermore, the simulation confirms that the value of control saturates as the proportion of controllable DSRs increases compared to uncontrollable demand and generation.

Integrated buried heaters for efficient spectral control of air-clad microresonator frequency combs

Integrated heaters are essential in the photonics toolbox, particularly for microresonator frequency tuning through the thermo-refractive effect. Resonators that are fully embedded in a solid cladding (typically SiO2) allow for straightforward lossless integration of heater elements. However, air-clad resonators, which are of great interest for short wavelength dispersion engineering and direct interfacing with atomic/molecular systems, do not usually have similar low loss and efficient heater integration through standard fabrication. Here, we develop a new approach in which the integrated heater is embedded in SiO2 below the waveguiding layer, enabling more efficient heating and more arbitrary routing of the heater traces than possible in a lateral configuration. We incorporate these buried heaters within a stoichiometric Si3N4 process flow that includes high-temperature (>1000 °C) annealing. Microring resonators with a 1 THz free spectral range and quality factors near 106 are demonstrated, and the resonant modes are tuned by nearly 1.5 THz, a 5× improvement compared to equivalent devices with lateral heaters. Finally, we demonstrate broadband dissipative Kerr soliton generation in this platform and show how the heaters can be utilized to aid in bringing relevant lock frequencies within a detectable range.

Development of Vacuum-Steam Combination Heating System for Pasteurization of Sprout Barley Powder

The processing of sprout vegetables in powder form has been known to extend the shelf-life by retaining nutritional values; however, sprout powder products were exposed to a variety of contaminants, such as microbial contaminants, during processing and storage. Therefore, the proper treatment for removing the contaminants in the powder was required without compromising their quality properties. This study was conducted (1) to determine a suitable pasteurization method for sprout barley powder, and (2) to investigate the effect of vacuum-steam heating combination treatment on the quality change and the lethality of microorganisms in sprout barley powder. The heating pattern of sprout barley powder was elucidated with a vacuum-thermal combination system consisting of a vacuum chamber, overhead stirrer, far-infrared heater, and PID (Proportional-Integral-Differential) controller. In addition, the mixing patterns of sprout barley powder, depending on the types of stirring blades, were evaluated by discrete element modeling using EDEM™ software. The vacuum-steam combination heating system was fabricated using the investigated pre-design factors. The quality change in sprout barely powder was evaluated by measuring the microbial inactivation, CIE values (L*, a*, b*, ΔE), and water activity (aw). During the pasteurization process, steam could be directly injected into the chamber at regular intervals for two hours to transfer moisture and heat to the powder. By combining steam and vacuum conditions, the population of E. coli O157:H7 in the powder was reduced by 4.33 log CFU/g, eliminating all E. coli O157:H7 in the powder. In addition, the water activity (aw) of the powder was significantly decreased in a vacuum pressure environment without the quality deterioration.

Predicting Melt-Crystal Interface Position and Shape during the Manufacturing Process of Single Crystal via Explainable Machine Learning Models

In recent years, employing machine learning models to predict the process parameters during the manufacturing process of single crystals has gained wide attention as it’s reliable and much faster than traditional numerical simulation approaches. However, most machine learning models used in previous studies are black box models, which don’t provide explainable results. In this paper, we present a feasibility study of applying explainable machine learning models to predict steady-state melt-crystal interface position and deflection with the set-point temperature of 5 heaters in a vertical Bridgman furnace. The dataset used to train and evaluate the machine learning models was generated by 2-D numerical simulation. We experimented with linear regression and random forest algorithms, and then used linear regression coefficient and SHAP value to quantify the impact of each input on the output, from which we inferred a heater control strategy that could potentially improve the crystal growth process. Our encouraging results show that explainable machine learning models can be applied to predict crystal growth process parameters in real-time and generate actionable insights to guide crystal manufacturing practice.

Classification of heating conditions in terms of smart control of indoor heating with the use of uncontrolled electric heaters

Purpose. To reduce specific energy consumption for heating municipal and industrial buildings by introducing smart indoor temperature control taking into consideration individual dependences of characteristics of each person as a consumer of energy resources on specific heating conditions. Methodology. The energy-efficient and smart control of indoor heating is based on the fact that a control system is to elaborate and provide a compromise solution as for comfortable perception of proper conditions of someones staying indoors and minimum consumption of energy resources. To do that, first of all the problem should be solved concerning recognition of different heating conditions by a smart control system aimed at providing a process of system learning and database formation. To complete this task, the parameters of one-dimensional dynamic models describing heat-exchange processes are proposed to be used as the information signs for the classification of situations in terms of heating relative to the uncontrolled electric heaters; the input value is the heater capacity, and the output value is the air temperature within the local indoor zone. Within the framework of the development of a method for classifying indoor heating conditions, dependences of the parameters of dynamic models of local indoor heating zones on the characteristics of local heating zones were analysed. Besides, certain regularities of a control process for heaters were determined; that helped provide accurate identification of the models of local heating zones without considerable changes in a preset temperature mode. Computational experiments made it possible to evaluate the accuracy of determination of information signs for the classification of heating conditions while representing real characteristics of indoor heat-exchange processes. Findings. The studies resulted in the development of a method for identifying dynamic properties of indoor heat zones for the cases of using uncontrolled electric heaters with two states. Originality. For the first time, certain regularities have been identified concerning a capacity control process for electric heaters with two states and a process of temperature measurement within the local indoor zones. The regularities made it possible to determine the parameters of dynamic models of indoor heat-exchange processes with high accuracy and without considerable changes in the preset temperature mode, and to use these parameters as information signs while classifying the heating conditions. Practical value. The obtained regularities of the processes of heater control and temperature measurement allowed developing a method for identification of dynamic properties of local indoor heat zones, which makes up the basis for a classification procedure of heating conditions.

An evaluation of domestic electric water heaters for frequency control

Maintaining the frequency of a power system close to its nominal value (50 Hz or 60 Hz) is critical, which comes mainly from generators and flexible loads in traditional power systems. Direct load control (DLC) is a method to control controllable loads for power system optimization. In general, it is used to reduce or shave peak demand. Nonetheless, DLC also can be used to provide frequency control services. Domestic electric water heater (DEWH) is an important kind of controllable load, which takes a high percentage of domestic electric power consumption and has a large thermal energy storage capacity. Hence, DEWH can be a prime candidate for DLC. This study proposes a framework to provide frequency control service with DEWHs. A virtual battery pack system (VBPS) is introduced to be equivalent to the capacity of DEWHs, and a series of measurable indicators are proposed to show the capacity of the VBPS when providing frequency control services. An adaptive criterion is applied to classify controllable DEWHs, which helps to maintain end-user comfort. The performances of the proposed frequency control method during normal and contingency conditions are verified through case studies in CYME.

Design And Fabrication of Temperature and Humidity Stabilizer on Low Voltage Distribution Panel with PLC-Based Fuzzy Method to Prevent Excessive Temperature and Humidity on The Panel

Distribution panel is equipment that functions to receive electrical energy from PLN and subsequently distributes, as well as controls the distribution of electrical energy through the main and branch panel circuits to branch Distribution Panel or directly through the final load circuit. One of the problems with the Distribution Panel is the occurrence of fluctuating voltage changes and disturbances caused by condensation due to high humidity values. Based on previous research, the solution to minimize this problem is by optimizing the temperature and humidity on the Distribution Panel. So, in this research, we examine the effect of fan and heater control on the temperature and humidity of the Distribution Panel. The aim of this research is to fabrication the prototype that can be prevent the presence of excess temperature and humidity that does not meet applicable standards. So that it is expected to minimize the occurrence of hazards due to excessive temperature and humidity. In this research, it was found that the fan control using the fuzzy method can change the temperature of the panel room from 42.06oC to 32.82oC in a period of 440 seconds. However, the fan control with simple logic can only change the temperature of the panel room which is all 42.22oC to 35.05oC in 440 seconds. So it can be concluded that the fan control with the fuzzy method can reduce the temperature faster than the fan control with simple logic. Based on the graph on the panel room temperature stability test, it was found that the level of temperature stability in the room could be better controlled with fan control with the fuzzy method than using fan control with simple logic. Heater control system can reduce humidity levels from 95.14%RH to 55.25%RH within 160 seconds.

Large-Scale Modeling and DR Control of Electric Water Heaters With Energy Star and CTA-2045 Control Types in Distribution Power Systems

This article proposes a generalized energy storage model for battery energy storage systems, electric water heaters (EWH), and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to enable demand response control complying to Energy Star and CTA-2045 standards. The demand response control has been implemented in the DER integration testbed, which was originally developed by Electric Power Research Institute, to demonstrate that the “energy content” and “energy take” for BESS and EWH with mixing valve technology are comparable for typical residential ratings. A distribution power system was modeled using the modified IEEE 123-bus feeder system, measured residential loads, and EWH power simulated based on realistic hot water draws from CBECC-Res software. The demand response control, which complies to CTA-2045 standards was implemented to the EWHs considering the energy take values. Results demonstrate that the EWHs can be controlled to postpone the peak power at the distribution system level and provide a large amount of energy storage, while maintaining system robustness. The impact on occupant comfort was also analyzed.

7-DAYS HIGH-SALT DIET AFFECTS NO-MEDIATED MICROVASCULAR ENDOTHELIAL VASODILATION IN YOUNG HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS

Objective: We have previously reported that short-term (7-days) high-salt (HS) loading impairs microvascular endothelial function in young healthy individuals, independently of blood pressure (BP) or body composition and fluid status changes. This study aimed to functionally assess specifically nitric-oxide (NO) mediated endothelial vasodilation of skin microcirculation in response to 7-day HS diet in healthy salt-resistant individuals. Design and method: 20 young healthy individuals (10 women and 10 men), age ranged between 19–24 years, participated in the present study. All subjects adhered to a 7-day low-salt (LS) diet (3.5 g salt/day) followed by a 7-day high-salt (HS) diet (∼14.7 g salt/day) protocol. To confirm that subjects conformed to the diet protocol, daily salt intake based on 24-h urinary sodium excretion was calculated using appropriate formula before and after HS diet protocol. Blood pressure (BP) was measured before and after respective diet protocols and salt resistance was defined as a < 5 mmHg change in mean arterial pressure (MAP) determined on LS versus HS diet. NO-mediated microvascular endothelial vasodilation in response to local heating (42°C) was functionally assessed using laser Doppler Flowmetry (LDF) (moorVMS-LDF, Moor Instruments, UK) and skin heater controller (moorVMS-HEAT, Moor Instruments, UK). Results: 24-hour sodium excretion significantly increased following HS diet compared to LS conditions (salt/g LS 6.6 ± 2.6 vs. HS 14.3 ± 2.5, P < 0.001). Salt resistance was confirmed in all subjects undergoing study (MAP/mmHg LS 87 ± 7 vs. HS 86 ± 9, P = 0.829). 7-day HS diet significantly reduced skin microvascular flow increase in response to local heating compared to LS conditions (LDF HEAT LS 14.16 ± 6.01 vs. HS 10.67 ± 3.27, P = 0.006). Conclusions: Results of the present study have functionally demonstrated that 7-days HS diet alters specifically NO-mediated endothelium-dependent of skin microcirculation in salt-resistant young healthy individuals.

Water Temperature Measurement Method Based on Square-Wave Signal Generator

Water temperature measurement is widely used and plays an important role in fishery breeding, agricultural irrigation, temperature control of household water heater and other aspects. People have a huge demand for water temperature measurement devices. The performance of the existing device is greatly affected by the environment and often requires manual intervention. The square-wave signal generator has simple structure, stable output, low energy consumption, easy operation and low price. The water temperature measurement method based on the square-wave signal generator can expand the application range of the square-wave signal generator, promote the convenience of measurement work and then improve the measurement sensitivity. Based on operational amplifier, Schmitt-Trigger Inverter and 555 Timer, the output frequency of the circuit changes according to the change of the overall resistance value of the circuit. A waterproof thermistor is added to the circuit and placed in water. The water temperature would change the resistance value of the overall circuit by changing the resistance value of the thermistor. Therefore, different output frequencies of the measuring circuit reflect different water temperatures. The working principles of the above three measuring circuits are specifically described, and their measuring characteristics are compared. It can be seen that the circuit based on 555 Timer has stable measuring performance and high sensitivity, which can be widely applied to the needs of water temperature measurement in production and life. What’s more, it provides a new idea for water temperature measurement.

Centrally Adapted Optimal Control of Multiple Electric Water Heaters

Breakthroughs in smart grid technology make it possible to deliver electricity in controlled and intelligent ways to improve energy efficiency between the user and the utility. Demand-side management strategies can reduce overall energy usage and shift consumption to reduce peak loads. Electric water heaters account for 40% of residential energy consumption. Since they are thermal storage devices, advanced control strategies can improve their efficiency. However, existing methods disregard the connection between the user and the grid. We propose a centrally adapted control model that allows for coordinated scheduling to adapt the optimal control schedule of each EWH, spreading the load into off-peak periods to ensure that the grid’s generation capacity is not exceeded. We consider two strategies for the delivery of hot water: temperature matching, and energy matching with Legionella sterilisation, and compare them to a baseline strategy where the thermostat is always switched on. Simulation results for a grid of 77 EWHs showed that an unconstrained peak load of 1.05 kW/EWH can be reduced as low as 0.4 kW/EWH and achieve a median energy saving per EWH of 0.38 kWh/day for the temperature matching strategy and 0.64 kWh/day for the energy matching strategy, without reducing the user’s comfort.

AI-Based Home Energy Management System Considering Energy Efficiency and Resident Satisfaction

Demand-side energy management is becoming increasingly important owing to concerns related to global warming and energy shortages. In particular, as the development of Internet of Things (IoT) enables the precise control of home appliances, the demand for home energy management systems (HEMSs) is expected to increase. This article proposes an artificial intelligence-based HEMS (AI-HEMS) that provides both energy efficiency and resident satisfaction. To this end, we implemented three prediction mechanisms: 1) derivation of comfort temperature; 2) device-free sleep prediction; and 3) occupancy-probability-based outing prediction. Based on these mechanisms, we present four intelligent heater control strategies: 1) outing; 2) occupancy; 3) comfort; and 4) sleep-based control. For evaluation, an experimental testbed was constructed and measurements were taken. To increase the reliability of the evaluation by excluding natural energy fluctuation factors, a treatment group (100 households) and a control group (2281 households) were recruited to measure the energy savings of the treatment group compared to the control group. In a 48-day evaluation, AI-HEMS was found to provide an energy-saving rate of approximately 14% and resident satisfaction of approximately 91%. These results imply that the proposed system can save energy while maintaining a high level of satisfaction.

Thermal Wave Variation Anticipation Under Minute Scale Time-Advance With Low-Pass NGD Digital Circuit

Over the emerging industry 4.0 era, the building control system performance depends on the development of smart sensor technology. Nowadays, the building control engineers challenge on the design of high-capacity smart sensor susceptible to operate with high speed of data processing. In this context, this paper introduces a pioneer research work on the negative group delay (NGD) circuit original application for room temperature anticipation useful for smart-building control. The real-time anticipation of sensor data by using a low-pass (LP) NGD digital circuit is studied. This approach enables minimizing the latency time for optimizing control action. The unfamiliar LP-NGD digital circuit design method and theoretical formulation are described for anticipating thermal wave experimentation in real-time. The digital circuit equation coefficients are computed regarding the time-advance of anticipated thermal completely arbitrary waveform signal. The main interest of using the NGD method-based for thermal wave anticipation regarding temperature variation from heater and freezer control is demonstrated. The anticipation feasibility is illustrated from the minute scale time-advance LP-NGD digital circuit implemented on the STM32® microcontroller unit. The NGD characterization is performed from frequency domain analysis and cosine waveform pulse transient test. Then, the -30 seconds to -10 seconds real-time-advance of temperature variation is verified by calculation and experimentation. The present study result opens a promising NGD method application for the advanced fault control of a future industrial system by anticipating system failures.

Design and development of heater control circuit without temperature sensor for monitoring hydrogen in argon.

A thin film based tin oxide sensor is developed to monitor low levels of hydrogen (concentration ranging from 5 to 75 ppm) in the cover gas plenum of the fast breeder test reactor. The heater and the sensor patterns are integrated on a miniature alumina substrate, and necessary electrical leads are incorporated into it. For proper functioning of the sensor, the heater has to be maintained at a constant temperature of 350 °C. This paper gives an outline of the electronics developed to measure the sensor signal and to control the heater temperature. The major challenge in this work is that there was no provision for embedding a temperature sensor on the heater surface due to physical constraints. This constrained the maintenance of a constant heater temperature for the proper functioning of the sensor. This led us to develop and demonstrate a heater control circuit without a temperature sensor to maintain a fixed temperature for monitoring hydrogen in argon, and electronics for the above-mentioned circuitry is discussed.

Perancangan Sistem Kontrol Heater Mesin Grinder Coffee Brewer Otomatis Menggunakan Metode Kontrol PI (Proportional Integral)

Coffee drink is one of the drinks favored by millennial people, where they relax and gather together. In an era of rapidly developing technology, many millennials are busy in the world of work who are required to do it quickly and on time, so they are very busy and most of them take short breaks to enjoy a cup of coffee. Therefore, to help facilitate the serving of coffee, an automatic coffee brewer heater control system was designed using PI control. Where the control is to control the hot temperature that will be made coffee using a heater. The results from testing the entire PTC sensor temperature set to 40 o C, the maximum temperature produced is 43 o C. And for the overall test of the heating temperature set at 35 o C, the time it takes to heat the water is 2.17 minutes, then after that the coffee will automatically come out of the heatear. For the temperature data carried out in this experiment, it was carried out from 30 o C to 90 o C with each experiment carried out by a heat transfer of 5 o C, to find out how long it took to heat the water in the heatear, so that it was suitable for coffee consumption by producing a glass of hot coffee that was ready to drink.

Liquid metal bionic instant self-healing flexible electronics with full recyclability and high reliability

Soft smart electronics with fast self-healing ability, complete recyclability, high reliability have attracted increasing interest. However, flexible electronics are still limited by stability under extreme impact and self-healing speed. Herein, the bio-based α-thioctic acid (TA) and butyl acrylate (BA) recycled copolymer with complete recyclability, excellent self-healing ability, and outstanding adhesion attributed to the abundant hydrogen bonds and disulfide bond was chosen as substrate material. Significantly, the performance of rapid self-healing (5 min, 60 °C) is very similar to the concept of clinic healing by first intention and the bionic idea of suture helping human wound healing. The coupling of mask and plasma treatment was used to enhance the interaction between liquid metal (LM) and substrate in a specific position and further explored the enhancement mechanism. Benefiting the excellent fluidity of liquid metal and the instantaneous bonding of damaged parts, the flexible electronic devices with real-time mechanical and conductivity self-healing performances were fabricated. The Liquid Metal-Bionic Instant Self-Healing Electronic Materials (LM-BISHEM) we developed has many applications in wearable intelligent devices, including bionic electronic skin, human-machine interaction sensor, flexible heater, and soft sensor control array. Based on the materials in this work, a classified closed-loop recycling strategy is proposed to realize the complete recycling of all components.

A novel interferometric method for simultaneous measurement of film thickness and film interface temperature for a horizontal tube falling film evaporator for MED systems

Horizontal tube falling film evaporation spans a lot of applications, especially in multi-effect desalination application. Hence, the improvement of its gain output ratio is of prime importance, and for that, the studies on the characteristics associated with the flow, mainly falling film thickness and falling film interface temperature, are inevitable. As the falling film flow is a delicate fluid structure, non-intrusive measurement techniques have to be preferred for the experiment. In this work, we introduce a novel interferometric method to calculate film interface temperature and a shadowgraph approach to estimate film thickness simultaneously. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer with infinite fringe setting was used to capture the thermal fluctuations around the horizontal tube falling film evaporator. Interferometric method implemented in this work also serves as an image visualization technique and does the purpose of qualitative as well as quantitative analysis. An in house designed experimental setup was fabricated for producing a thin and uniform falling film with a fully wetted flow over the horizontal copper tube. A heater controller setup was incorporated into it for accurate temperature control. This method holds the advantage of scanning falling film thickness over circumferential angle for the range 5∘≤θ≤175∘, which is an improvement to state of the art. Furthermore, dynamic film thickness and instantaneous film interface temperature studies were also incorporated to prove the efficacy of the technique and to test the robustness of the algorithms implemented. CFD analysis was also carried out for the entire process by means of VOF scheme and was found to be in good agreement with the experimental results, which proves our technique to be a good one. A standard error of mean analysis was performed on every data set, which validates the reproducibility and the dynamic measurement capability of the technique used.