Precision Calorimeter Model Development: Generative Design Approach

Abstract

In a wide range of applications, heating or cooling systems provide not only temperature changes, but also small temperature gradients in a sample or industrial facility. Although a conventional proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller usually solves the problem, it is not optimal because it does not use information about the main sources of change—the current power of the heater or cooler. The quality of control can be significantly improved by including a model of thermal processes in the control algorithm. Although the temperature distribution in the device can be calculated from a full-fledged 3D model based on partial differential equations, this approach has at least two drawbacks: the presence of many difficult-to-determine parameters and excessive complexity for control tasks. The development of a simplified mathematical model, free from these shortcomings, makes it possible to significantly improve the quality of control. The development of such a model using generative design techniques is considered as an example for a precision adiabatic calorimeter designed to measure the specific heat capacity of solids. The proposed approach, which preserves the physical meaning of the equations, allows for not only significantly improving the consistency between the calculation and experimental data, but also improving the understanding of real processes in the installation.