A novel technique of using a thyristor driven pump as the final control element and flow indicator of a flow control...

In the present paper, design of a flow control loop using a thyristor driven pump as final control element has been described. In this technique, the load current of a thyristor driven pump motor has been utilized as a mass flow sensing parameter of a fluid passing through a pipeline. This thyristor driven pump has been utilized as a final control element of a flow control loop and the speed of the pump has been selected as the manipulated variable. The non-linearity between the thyristor input signal and pump output has been eliminated by using a modified PID control technique with inverse derivative control action. Thus without using any conventional flow meter and control valve only the thyristor driven pump has been utilized both as the final control element and flow indicating device by using the proposed technique. The whole system has been designed, fabricated and tested by using tap water as the flowing liquid through a pipe line. The experimental results along with the theoretical analysis are compared and reported in the paper.