A fault tolerant superheat control strategy for supermarket refrigeration systems

In this paper, a fault tolerant control (FTC) strategy is proposed for evaporator superheat control in supermarket refrigeration systems. Conventional control uses a pressure and temperature sensor for this purpose, however, the pressure sensor can fail to function. A contingency control strategy, based on a maximum slope-seeking control method and only a single temperature sensor, is developed to drive the evaporator outlet temperature to a level that gives a suitable superheat of the refrigerant. The FTC strategy requires no a priori system knowledge or additional hardware and functions in a plug & play fashion. The strategy is outlined by means of procedural steps as well as a flow chart that also illustrates the process of automatic tuning of the maximum slope-seeking controller. Test results are furthermore presented for a display case in a full scale CO2 supermarket refrigeration system.