Temperature control of a solar furnace with exact linearization and off-line identification

Abstract

The ability to predict the behavior of materials is crucial in several industries due to safety aspects, such as in high temperature furnaces for the production of glass, in the nuclear energy industry or in the high concentrated thermal solar systems. Solar furnaces use concentrated solar radiation that can be used to perform material stress tests with high temperatures. These devices have nonlinear dynamics that are caused by the actuator, the shutter, and by the interaction between the solar energy and the properties of the material. The contribution of this paper consists in the design of a controller for practical use based on the exact linearization method with off-line identification. The aim is to improve the controller performance to track the temperature profile. In this context it is assumed that the thermodynamic properties of the sample material to be tested are unknown. © 2015 Springer International Publishing.