Development of Innovative Modelling, Real Time and Hardware In the Loop Techniques for Industrial Systems

Hardware In the Loop (HIL) simulations are testing tools that have been widely applied in recent years for the design and testing of components and systems. In particular, a part of the real environment is inserted in the simulation loop. The HIL architecture, whose nature results partly physical and partly simulated, is employed to test a component or system in Real Time (RT). The continuous development of technologies for the fast prototyping of RT code has contributed to speed up the diffusion of complex HIL testing techniques. However, this approach still appears to be poorly followed in the energy field where, concerning the study of complex plants, the accurate modelling of these systems results in high computation times that are not acceptable for RT simulations. Therefore, the thesis focused on the development of innovative techniques for the modelling, RT and HIL testing of industrial systems, which aimed at obtaining the best compromise between accuracy and efficiency. In particular, the proposed strategies have been applied in two distinct test cases. The first one concerns with the development of both an efficient model of a turbo-machinery auxiliary plant and of a suitable RT control system for the execution of functional tests procedure on a real plants. The second one aimed at developing an innovative control system for Turbine Bypass Valves (TBVs) through HIL tests performed on a dedicated test rig. The research work has been executed by the Section of Applied Mechanics from the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Florence in collaboration with General Electric S.p.A and Velan ABV S.p.A, which provided the required tools and experimental data.