This paper discusses thermodynamic models of air inside pneumatic actuator chambers. In servo-pneumatics common practice, these models are simplified by neglecting the temperature dynamics. Classical models in the literature assume the temperature inside the pneumatic chamber either to be constant or to follow a polytropic law. Furthermore, the mixing process of air entering the chamber and heat transfer between air and cylinder walls is often neglected or only implicitly taken into account.This work evaluates the impact of these simplifications and order reductions in the prediction of pressure inside the actuator chamber. Classical models are compared with several others not only taking into account the mixing process but also explicitly including the heat transfer between air and cylinder walls. Simulation studies show that the reduced-order models proposed in this paper can lead to a mean square error in pressure prediction of only 10 per cent of that obtained using classical models.Keywords: servo-pneumatic systems modelling, servo-pneumatic systems simulation
INTRODUCTIONis to neglect temperature dynamics and to consider a polytropic process with an index ranging from In order to control a pneumatic actuator accurately, a 1 (isothermal process) to 1.4 (adiabatic reversible model of the pneumatic system has to be established. process). [7][8][9][10] where, although the pressure is inappropriate for control purposes since it is dynamic model is deduced assuming that the temmathematically difficult to handle and demands a perature follows a polytropic law, a further simplifimass or temperature observer as these variables cation in this model is introduced by neglecting cannot be correctly measured during operation.temperature changes with respect to ambient temServo-pneumatic systems are used in applications perature. This approach leads to a situation where where force or motion control is required. In both the polytropic index of pressure dynamics is tuneable situations the pressure inside the chambers is the but the temperature is fixed at ambient temperature. most relevant thermodynamic state variable since More recently, a new approximate model of a the control goals directly depend on it. Therefore, the pneumatic cylinder thermodynamic chamber was most typical solution to reduce the order of the model proposed in reference [11]; based on experimental evidence presented in reference [12], Richer and Hurmuzlu [11] use a polytropic-based model whose