OPTIMIZED CONTROLLER DESIGN FOR A BLOWDOWN SUPERSONIC WIND TUNNEL BY USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

Abstract

Blowdown Supersonic Wind Tunnels (SWTs) are generally operated with a constant stagnation pressure in the settling chamber, with control usually provided by one or more pressure regulators or control valves. In this paper, first, a Simulink block diagram code was developed to solve the nonlinear mathematical model of the special BSWT consisting of a set of ordinary differential and algebraic equation that derived from mass and energy conservation equations. At the second step, a Proportional-Integral (PI) controller system was developed in Matlab/Simulink software environment to control the stagnation pressure in the settling chamber and Mach number in the test section. Next, the PI controller parameter is optimized by an intelligent approach such as using Genetic Algorithm (GA). At last, experimental verification has been carried out for supersonic conditions to show the system robustness. Also the system simulation results with the optimized controller for a Mach 3 blowdown run is presented. The results illustrate a great performance of the BSWT model and its controller.

Keywords

• blowdown supersonic wind tunnel
• pressure control
• pi controller
• flow control valve
• mach number
• genetic algorithm