Nonlinear stabilization of a thermal convection loop by state feedback (Q5949069)

A nonlinear feedback control law that achieves global asymptotic stabilization of a 2D thermal convection loop is presented. The loop consists of a viscous Newtonian fluid contained in between two concentric cylinders standing in a vertical plane. The lower half of the loop is heated while the upper half is cooled, which makes the no-motion steady state for the uncontrolled case unstable for values of the non-dimensional Rayleigh number \(R_a> 1\). The objective is to stabilize the steady state using boundary control of velocity and temperature on the outer cylinder. The authors discretize the original nonlinear partial differential equation model in space using FDM and get a high order system of coupled nonlinear ordinary differential equations in 2D. Then, using the backstepping design, the authors transform the original coupled system into two uncoupled systems that are asymptotically stable in the \(\ell^2\)-norm with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. The resulting boundary controls actuate velocity and temperature in the original coordinates. The control design is accompanied by an extensive simulation study which shows that the feedback control law designed on a very coarse grid can successfully stabilize the actual system for a very wide range of the Rayleigh number.