Model predictive control for slurry pipeline transportation of a cutter suction dredger

Wei, Changyun, Wei, Yi and Ji, Ze ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8968-9902 2021. Model predictive control for slurry pipeline transportation of a cutter suction dredger. Ocean Engineering 227 , 108893. 10.1016/j.oceaneng.2021.108893

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Abstract

Cutter Suction Dredgers (CSDs) are a special type of ships designed for construction and maintenance projects of ocean and offshore engineering. During the dredging operation, CSDs can excavate nearly all kinds of soil on the sea bed, and then the dredged materials with coarse particles need to be sucked up by a slurry pump and transported to a disposal area through a long-distance pipeline. In order to avoid sedimentation of slurry in pipeline transportation, the flow rate must be maintained within a reasonable range. Otherwise, the pipeline can be blocked when the slurry density is too high. In this paper, we present a Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach to manipulate the flow rate of slurry in pipeline transportation for a CSD. To demonstrate the advantages of our proposed approach, we also implement three Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controllers (i.e., conventional PID, Fuzzy-PID, and LQR-PID) to make a direct comparison. Moreover, in order to evaluate the effectiveness of our proposed approach in real scenarios, we have, in particular, built a slurry pipeline transportation platform. Both the simulation and experimental results show that our proposed MPC approach is more effective than other PID controllers in controlling the flow rate in the slurry pipeline transportation problem. The proposed approach can provide a guideline for the automated control of the slurry pump for a CSD.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Engineering
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	0029-8018
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 March 2021
Date of Acceptance:	13 March 2021
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2023 00:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/139825

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