THE DESIGN OF A CONTROL-SYSTEM FOR SMALL HYDRAULIC MODELS

An electronic system is described for controlling the dynamic water level in a hydraulic tidal model. A brief history of water level control for models is followed by a description of the present pneumatic tide generation method. The essential elements of an electronic tide control system are broken down into three main parts, namely the sensor, the control unit and the actuator. The system described is based on a dedicated microprocessor using a proportional-integral algorithm. The advantages of using a digital control system as opposed to an analogue one are discussed. The possibility of producing small accurate tidal models as a demanding test bed for the tuning and validation of numerical models is also considered.