Control Co-design for Hybrid Thermal Management Systems
Abstract
Approved for Public ReleasePerformance requirements for thermal management systems (TMSs) are growing increasingly stringent as a result of significant increases in electrification aboard a range of naval vessels and air vehicles. Efforts at integrating thermal energy storage (TES) into such systems can provide a safeguard against highly transient loads that otherwise push or exceed the nominal operating envelope of the system. These hybrid thermal management systems, or hybrid TMSs, can maintain critical surface or fluid temperatures via a combination of thermal energy storage and heat exchange with an external sink. However, systematic methods fordesigning, and controlling, thermal energy storage devices integrated with TMSs do not exist. The problem is further complicated bythe fact that a hybrid TMS is characterized by distinct operating modes with different dynamics, representing a type of hybrid system. Hybrid dynamical systems are studied extensively in control theory, but relevant tools for analysis, design, and control have not been brought to bear on this challenging problem. Therefore, in this proposal Control Co-Design of Hybrid Thermal Management Systems, PI Neera Jain (Purdue University) will use a hybrid systems approach to develop the requisite tools for optimizing both the system design, and an associated hybrid controller, for a TMS with integrated thermal energy storage, so that transient performance specifications can be robustly guaranteed during real-time operation. A particular emphasis will be on the optimal design of the TES, including its capacity, phase change temperature, and charging and discharging characteristics, as they relate to system level performance. The novel contributions of the proposed research are expected to be (1) a model-based state of charge estimation algorithm that can be used for real-time control of TES, (2) a hybrid control architecture and design for the proposed hybrid TMS that optimally leverages thermal energy storage to achieve robustness against heat load disturbances with bounded uncertainty, and (3) a hybridized control co-design framework that explicitly considers the dynamics of multiple operating modes when optimizing TES module parameters. Each of these theoretical contributions will be strengthened with experimental validation.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 09, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112352
Entities
People
- Neera Sundaram
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Purdue University
- United States Navy