Development of CAVLAB—A Control-Oriented MATLAB Based Simulator for an Underground Coal Gasification Process

Afaq Ahmed, Syed Bilal Javed, Ali Arshad Uppal () and Jamshed Iqbal ()
Additional contact information
Afaq Ahmed: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Syed Bilal Javed: Centers of Excellence in Science & Applied Technologies, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan
Ali Arshad Uppal: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Islamabad 45550, Pakistan
Jamshed Iqbal: School of Computer Science, Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, UK

Mathematics, 2023, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-26

Abstract: The Cavity Simulation Model (CAVSIM) is a 3D, parameterisable simulator of the Underground Coal Gasification Process (UCG) that serves as a benchmark for UCG prediction. Despite yielding accurate outputs, CAVSIM has some limitations, which chiefly include inadequate graphical capabilities to visualise cavity geometry and gas production, time-ineffectiveness in terms of parametrisation, i.e., it involves editing, compiling multiple files and checking for errors, and lack of tools to synthesise a controller. Therefore, to compensate for these shortcomings, the services of third-party software, such as MATLAB, must be procured. CAVSIM was integrated with MATLAB to utilise its functionalities and toolboxes such as System Identification, Neural Network, and Optimization Toolbox etc. The integration was accomplished by designing C-mex files, and furthermore, the simulation results in both environments exhibit the same behaviour, demonstrating successful integration. Consequently, CAVSIM has also acquired a controllable structure, wherein parametrisation is now a single-click process; this is demonstrated by a case study outlining the implementation of Model Predictive Control (MPC) on a UCG plant. Moreover, the performance metrics, i.e., Mean Average Error (MAE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of 0.13, 0.23 for syngas heating value, and 0.012, 0.02 for flowrate quantitatively establishes the efficacy of CAVLAB in designing MPC for the UCG system. The novelty of this work lies in making the software package open-source with the aim of streamlining the research of multiple aspects of the UCG process.

Keywords: energy conversion process; Underground Coal Gasification (UCG); Cavity Simulation Model (CAVSIM); C-mex; Cavity Laboratory (CAVLAB); UCG simulator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/11/11/2493/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/11/11/2493/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:11:y:2023:i:11:p:2493-:d:1158328

Access Statistics for this article

Mathematics is currently edited by Ms. Emma He

More articles in Mathematics from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().