Controllability of cross-flow heat exchangers (Q1434617)

The controllability of cross-flow heat exchangers is investigated from a theoretical point of view. This property guarantees the ability of the heat exchanger to transfer a system from an initial to a final state. A finite difference approach is introduced for the analysis of systems governed by a coupled set of partial differential equations. Two fundamentally different problems arise when the temperatures and flow rates are used as manipulated variables. The former is linear, and the latter nonlinear. The authors analyze the cases of controllability with respect to different manipulated variables. The heat exchanger was found to be less controllable for high air and water flow rates. It is found that there is an optimum water flow rate at which the heat exchanger is the most controllable.