Extruder barrel temperature field control using the lumped input and distributed output approach

Modeling and control of the extruder temperature field is discussed, a process governed by a nonlinear partial differential equation. Utilizing finite element approximation a discretized input/output representation of the system is created with the inputs being powers of heaters and output the extruder temperature field. Local linearization is applied at the operating point and the controller is designed based on the lumped-input and distributed-parameter-output systems approach, using the time-space decoupling of systems' dynamics. Results are verified experimentally.