Controls and Control Theory Commons^™

Development Of Instrumentation And Control Systems For An Integral Large Scale Pressurized Water Reactor, Matthew Rowland Morrow Lish

Doctoral Dissertations

Small and large scale integral light water reactors are being developed to supply electrical power and to meet the needs of process heat, primarily for water desalination. This dissertation research focuses on the instrumentation and control of a large integral inherently safe light water reactor (designated as I²S-LWR) which is being designed as part of a grant by the U.S. Department of Energy Integrated Research Project (IRP). This 969 MWe integral pressurized water reactor (PWR) incorporates as many passive safety features as possible while maintaining competitive costs with current light water reactors. In support of this work, the …

Design And Control Of Close Proximity Indirect Exposure For Nonthermal Atmospheric Pressure Plasma-Based Oxidation Of Carbon Fiber Precursor, Truman Andrew Bonds

Doctoral Dissertations

A new plasma-based method for the stabilization of polyacrylonitrile carbon fiber precursor utilizing reactive chemical species derived from a custom atmospheric pressure plasma generation system was developed and demonstrated. As opposed to the conventional stabilization method of convective heating in air, plasma-based stabilization efficiently introduces oxidative reactive species that both diffuse through and react faster with the precursor filaments, resulting in a faster and more efficient process. This method was successfully demonstrated with a variety of precursor chemistries, grades and sizes. The development effort was entirely experimental, with successive processing devices designed and constructed to examine various aspects of the …

Stochastic And Optimal Distributed Control For Energy Optimization And Spatially Invariant Systems, Jin Dong

Doctoral Dissertations

Improving energy efficiency and grid responsiveness of buildings requires sensing, computing and communication to enable stochastic decision-making and distributed operations. Optimal control synthesis plays a significant role in dealing with the complexity and uncertainty associated with the energy systems.

The dissertation studies general area of complex networked systems that consist of interconnected components and usually operate in uncertain environments. Specifically, the contents of this dissertation include tools using stochastic and optimal distributed control to overcome these challenges and improve the sustainability of electric energy systems.

The first tool is developed as a unifying stochastic control approach for improving energy efficiency …

Dynamic Extruder Control For Polymer Printing In Big Area Additive Manufacturing, Alex Christopher Roschli

Masters Theses

Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) is 3D Printing on a large scale and can be used to create structures on the scale of cars and houses. Scaling up 3D printing to BAAM size meant fundamentally altering the traditional fused deposition modeling process by switching from a filament to a pellet material feed. This meant switching from a stepper motor extruder to a servo driven screw extruder. While increasing the throughput of the system, this new extruder increases the overall complexity. Effective control of the system is paramount to the success of BAAM enabling it to effectively scale in speed in …