Thermal Regulation in a Cylindrical Cooling System with Discrete Heat Sources

This project investigated the thermal management performance of P, PI, and PID controllers in a 3D cylindrical cooling system with discrete thin strips as heat sources via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based simulation using the COMSOL 6.0 software. The system features a hollow cylinder with four evenly spaced heat sources along its axis, insulated walls, and a central temperature probe providing feedback to maintain a set point. Air enters through a semicircular inlet, with its flow regulated by the controllers, and exits at atmospheric conditions. Using the Galerkin finite element method, the Navier-Stokes and energy equations are solved to analyze steady-state and dynamic responses, evaluating overshoot, rise time, oscillation, offset error, and settling time.