Input-output linearizing control of a thermal cracking furnace described by a coupled PDE-ODE system

This research presents a control scheme for a gas-fired ethylene dichloride (EDC) cracking furnace to handle a cracked gas temperature at the coil outlet. Input-output (I/O) linearizing control scheme is applied to the furnace model of which interaction between a lumped temperature of gas-fire radiating wall and spatially distributed dynamics of cracking coil is considered. In the proposed method, the feedback I/O linearizing controller for coupled PDE-ODE system is applied to force the cracked gas temperature to follow a desired trajectory by manipulation of a fuel gas flow rate. Simulation results showed that the proposed controller successfully forced the controlled output to a desired setpoint without off-set.