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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Performance Comparison Of Control Methods For Tankless Water Heaters, David P. Yuill, Andrew H. Coward, Gregor P. Henze
Performance Comparison Of Control Methods For Tankless Water Heaters, David P. Yuill, Andrew H. Coward, Gregor P. Henze
David Yuill
Tankless water heaters (TWH) have several advantages and disadvantages when compared with storage water heaters. One disadvantage is that the outlet temperature of the water is difficult to control. To address this problem, the authors apply seven different control approaches and con- duct experiments to test the effectiveness of each approach. The experiments are carried out on a commercially available electric TWH, using a test method and apparatus developed by the authors. The seven approaches include various configurations of feedback or feed-forward con- trol, or both. One fairly simple approach devised in this project combines feedback and feed-forward control. This …
Development Of A Model Predictive Controller For Tankless Water Heaters, Gregor P. Henze, David P. Yuill, Andrew H. Coward
Development Of A Model Predictive Controller For Tankless Water Heaters, Gregor P. Henze, David P. Yuill, Andrew H. Coward
David Yuill
This paper describes the development of a novel approach to temperature control of tankless water heaters (TWHs). Conventional methods of controlling TWHs typically allow a high degree of error in the outlet water temperature when subjected to disturbances in flow rate or inlet water temperature. Poor control affects comfort, safety, and energy consumption associ- ated with TWHs. The novel control approach presented here uses model predictive control (MPC) to minimize the outlet temperature error. A dynamic heat transfer model of an electric TWH is developed and validated and used within a MPC-based controller. The controller is interfaced to a physical …