by
Samuel Thurston Towell
B.S. in Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
at the
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
May 2000
ABSTRACT
This thesis presents the results of a simulation study comparing
the current integral control system with an adaptive control system for
potential use in a Uniform Droplet Spray Process. First, an adaptive
control algorithm was derived. Then, this algorithm and the existing
integral control algorithm were coded for use in MATLAB simulations.
The simulations were performed against each other over various sampling
periods and noise classes to compare the performance of both droplet diameter
mean and standard deviation. Results showed that for the target diameter
of 760 um, the adaptive controller could produce droplets with the mean
diameter of 759.9 um and a standard deviation of 0.0066 um, while the integral
controller produced droplets having the mean diameter and standard deviation
of 759.7 um and 0.0084 um, respectively. Over the sampling periods
experimented with, the adaptive controller could produce droplets with
the mean diameter of 759.9 um and a standard deviation of 0.0061 um, while
the integral controller produced droplets having the mean diameter and
standard deviation of 759.9 um and 0.0074 um, respectively.