This thesis is performed to evaluate the design consideration and performance characteristics of a surge tank for a diaphragm pump operation and to evaluate the proper volume and inlet area of surge tank in order to reduce the pulsations of the discharge pressure. An experimental set up is constructed for a three diaphragm positive displacement pump and the experiments are conducted afterwards. The surge tanks having different volumes and the surge tank inlet area configurations are tested in order to achieve the minimum peak to peak pulsations. Experiments showed that among the different sizes of the surge tanks, the minimum peak to peak pulsations are achieved with the largest volume which is the original surge tank of the test pump used by the pump manufacturer. This result is supported by the literature which states that with greater surge tank size the magnitude of pulsations can be diminished more. Regarding the surge tank inlet area design / among the eight different adaptors a proper inlet area value is concluded having the minimum peak to peak pulsations also smaller than the original configuration.

In water conveyance systems, sudden changes in the flow velocity cause a phenomenon called waterhammer associated with high pressure head changes. Unless a control device is used as a precaution, waterhammer may result in costly damages and even in some cases, loss of human lives. In light of this concept, different control devices that can protect the systems against waterhammer are introduced so that the great pressure differences are absorbed and the system is maintained undamaged. In this thesis, the main functions, the requirements for its construction and the different types of the surge tanks are explained. The governing differential equations defining the flow conditions of the surge tanks and their solutions are provided. In addition, for the use of design engineers a procedure to determine proper dimensions of a surge tank is developed. For the sake of dimensioning the surge tank effectively, empirical equations, which calculate the height of three different types of surge tanks with dimensionless parameters, are obtained. With the help of regression analysis, the correlation between the parameters of the developed equations are determined, and found to be relatively high. Finally, the economical aspect of a surge tank is discussed and comparison parameters are introduced to the designer.

Yes / This paper models a hydro turbine based on the dynamic description of the hydraulic system having a surge tank and elastic water hammer. The dynamic of the hydraulic system is transformed from transfer function form into the differential equation model in relative value. This model is then combined with the motion equation of the main servomotor to form the nonlinear model of the hydro turbine, in which the power of the hydro turbine is calculated using algebraic equation. A new control model is thus proposed in which the dynamic of the surge tank is taken as an additional input of control items. As such, the complex hydraulic system is decomposed into a classical one penstock and one machine model with an additional input control. Therefore, the order of the system is descended. As a result, the feasibility of the system is largely improved. The simulated results show that the additional input of the surge tank is effective and the proposed method is realizable. / National Natural Science Foundation of China (50839003, 50949037, 51179079), Natural Science Foundation of Yunnan Province (No. 2008GA027)

O transiente hidráulico na adução de Pequenas Centrais Hidrelétricas (PCH) é um importante tema de estudo para a correta escolha e dimensionamento das estruturas de amortecimento, que protegem o circuito adutor da variação abrupta da pressão interna causada pela variação na velocidade média do escoamento. Este trabalho propõe a utilização da hidrodinâmica computacional (CFD) para avaliar a oscilação de massa ou nível d\'água no interior da estrutura de proteção denominada Chaminé de Equilíbrio e comparar esses resultados com a solução teórica analítica, com os critérios de dimensionamento definidos em norma técnica e com os dados de medições experimentais. O problema foi modelado no software Ansys CFX que utiliza o método dos volumes finitos (MVF) para resolver os campos de velocidade e pressão do escoamento, tanto em regime permanente, quanto em regime transiente. Aplicando-se o modelo CFD proposto ao circuito hidráulico didático, os resultados foram validados com a formulação teórica e com as medições experimentais do nível d\'água na chaminé. O modelo foi aplicado num estudo de caso que consiste num circuito hidráulico de PCH. Os resultados da oscilação de massa no interior da chaminé para este estudo de caso confirmam o emprego da fluidodinâmica computacional para avaliar tais escoamentos em regime transitório. / The hydraulic transient in the circuit of Small Hydroelectric Power Plants (SHP) is an important study subject for the correct choice and design of damping structure which protects the conduit from an abrupt variation of the internal pressure caused by the changes in the average flow velocity. This work proposes the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to evaluate the mass oscillation or water level inside the protection structure called Surge Tank and compares these results with theory, design criteria defined by the technical standard, and experimental data. The problem was modeling in Ansys CFX software that uses the finite volume method (FVM) to solve velocity and pressure flow fields, in both steady state and transient flow. The proposed model used in a hydraulic circuit led to results validation with experimental measurements of water level surge tank. For the proposed case study, the response of the numerical CFD simulation confirms the use of computational fluid dynamics to evaluate such transient flows.

O transiente hidráulico na adução de Pequenas Centrais Hidrelétricas (PCH) é um importante tema de estudo para a correta escolha e dimensionamento das estruturas de amortecimento, que protegem o circuito adutor da variação abrupta da pressão interna causada pela variação na velocidade média do escoamento. Este trabalho propõe a utilização da hidrodinâmica computacional (CFD) para avaliar a oscilação de massa ou nível d\'água no interior da estrutura de proteção denominada Chaminé de Equilíbrio e comparar esses resultados com a solução teórica analítica, com os critérios de dimensionamento definidos em norma técnica e com os dados de medições experimentais. O problema foi modelado no software Ansys CFX que utiliza o método dos volumes finitos (MVF) para resolver os campos de velocidade e pressão do escoamento, tanto em regime permanente, quanto em regime transiente. Aplicando-se o modelo CFD proposto ao circuito hidráulico didático, os resultados foram validados com a formulação teórica e com as medições experimentais do nível d\'água na chaminé. O modelo foi aplicado num estudo de caso que consiste num circuito hidráulico de PCH. Os resultados da oscilação de massa no interior da chaminé para este estudo de caso confirmam o emprego da fluidodinâmica computacional para avaliar tais escoamentos em regime transitório. / The hydraulic transient in the circuit of Small Hydroelectric Power Plants (SHP) is an important study subject for the correct choice and design of damping structure which protects the conduit from an abrupt variation of the internal pressure caused by the changes in the average flow velocity. This work proposes the use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to evaluate the mass oscillation or water level inside the protection structure called Surge Tank and compares these results with theory, design criteria defined by the technical standard, and experimental data. The problem was modeling in Ansys CFX software that uses the finite volume method (FVM) to solve velocity and pressure flow fields, in both steady state and transient flow. The proposed model used in a hydraulic circuit led to results validation with experimental measurements of water level surge tank. For the proposed case study, the response of the numerical CFD simulation confirms the use of computational fluid dynamics to evaluate such transient flows.

With the ongoing trend in moving the upper levels of the automation hierarchy to the cloud, there has been investigation into supplying industrial automation as a cloud based service. There are many practical considerations which pose limitations on the feasibility of the idea. This research investigates some of the requirements which would be needed to implement a platform which would facilitate competition between different controllers which would compete to control a process in real-time. This work considers only the issues relating to implementation of the philosophy from a control theoretic perspective, issues relating to hardware/communications infrastructure and cyber security are beyond the scope of this work. A platform is formulated and all the relevant control requirements of the system are discussed. It is found that in order for such a platform to determine the behaviour of a controller, it would need to simulate the controller on a model of the process over an extended period of time. This would require a measure of the disturbance to be available, or at least an estimate thereof. This therefore increases the complexity of the platform. The practicality of implementing such a platform is discussed in terms of system identification and model/controller maintenance. A model of the surge tank from SibanyeStillwater’s Platinum bulk tailings treatment (BTT) plant, the aim of which is to keep the density of the tank outflow constant while maintaining a steady tank level, was derived, linearised and an input-output controllability analysis performed on the model. Six controllers were developed for the process, including four conventional feedback controllers (decentralised PI, inverse, modified inverse and H¥) and two Model Predictive Controllers (MPC) (one linear and another nonlinear). It was shown that both the inverse based and H¥ controllers fail to control the tank level to set-point in the event of an unmeasured disturbance. The competing concept was successfully illustrated on this process with the linear MPC controller being the most often selected controller, and the overall performance of the plant substantially improved by having access to more advanced control techniques, which is facilitated by the proposed platform. A first appendix presents an investigation into a previously proposed switching philosophy [15] in terms of its ability to determine the best controller, as well as the stability of the switching scheme. It is found that this philosophy cannot provide an accurate measure of controller performance owing to the use of one step ahead predictions to analyse controller behaviour. Owing to this, the philosophy can select an unstable controller when there is a stable, well tuned controller competing to control the process. A second appendix shows that there are cases where overall system performance can be improved through the use of the proposed platform. In the presence of constraints on the rate of change of the inputs, a more aggressive controller is shown to be selected so long as the disturbance or reference changes do not cause the controller to violate these input constraints. This means that switching back to a less aggressive controller is necessary in the event that the controller attempts to violate these constraints. This is demonstrated on a simple first order plant as well as the surge tank process. Overall it is concluded that, while there are practical issues surrounding plant and system identification and model/controller maintenance, it would be possible to implement such a platform which would allow a given plant access to advanced process control solutions without the need for procuring the services of a large vendor. / Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / MEng / Unrestricted