CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE DRY HEAT STERILIZER IS SEGMENTED Into 2 sections:

The programming phase and the fabrication

THE PROGRAMMING PHASE:

this involves interfacing the sensors and actuators with the controller having specified premises and
antecedence in order to ensure that the system is able to adapt easily to constant changes in the
working environment.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

SOLIDWORKS

The structural design of the solar heater was first designed on software via solidworks to give a better
understanding of the design and to readjust the design to fit optimum standard. The design consists of
an assembly of the container, the baffle, the Fresnel lens array, fan and heat sink, battery, control and
solar panel.

MICROSOFT EXCEL

This was used to state the initial conditions, the variables as well as the fuzzy linguistic variables on a
spreadsheet so as to state the premises and antecedence upon which the rules were formed.

MATLAB FUZZY LOGIC TOOLLBOX

A fuzzy logic toolbox provides functions, application and a Simulink block for analyzing and simulating
systems based on fuzzy logic (Mathworks, 2018). The basis of the programming for the controller had a
background on fuzzy logic, hence the need to employ this tool during the course of this project.

The course of work done using this software:

FUZZY LOGIC DESIGNER

This is used to specify the initial values of the system such as the number of inputs and outputs (i.e. 2
and 2 in this case) as well as the names (temp, humd, in-fan-spd and out-fan-spd). The AND method, the
OR method, the implication, aggregation and the defuzzification are also defined here as well. It also
makes provision for two other functions (membership function editor and real editor).

MEMBERSHIP FUNCTION EDITOR

This provides and environment to defined the membership functions (high mids and lows) for each input
and output; define their range of values as well as their degree of membership

RULE EDITOR

This provides a means of writing the rules which were developed from the linguistic variables by
selecting the input conditions, the connection between them and the resulting output conditions. The
weight of each rule can also be selected depending on which rule belongs to a higher order compared to
other rules. It also creates provisions for adding, deleting or changing already existing rules.

RULE VIEWER

After the initial conditions, variables, membership functions and rules have been written into the
program, the rule viewer is a means of running the program, helping the user to vary the inputs and see
the resulting implications on the outputs based on the rules which were written.

SURFACE VIEWER

This plots a 3 dimensional graph showing the surface produced by joining different points based on the
rules to show the deviation the rules make in a more visual form. For this controller, there are two
surface diagrams because there are two outputs. The x-axis represents the temp, the y-axis represents
the humd, and the z-axis shows the output (in-fan-spd or out-fan-spd as he case may be).

MATLAB SIMULINK

This is used to simulate the solar heater system with the fuzzy logic controller (which has the program
imported from the fuzzy logic toolbox) and the transfer function gotten from the mathematical model
developed for the solar air heater. It is used to stimulated the working of the system under various
conditIons for analytical purposes.

HARWARE REQUIREMENTS

ARDUINO UNO

This is the controller used to run the code programmed on the fuzzy logic toolbox n matlab. The .fis file
is converted to a C compiler and arduino code using the web link
www.makeproto.com/projects/fuzzy/matlab_arduino)_FIST/index.php

the arduino receives the inputs from the temperature and humidity probes connected to it, and passes
the controlled outputs to the actuators which are the fans.

SENSORS

The sensors required are temperature and humidity sensor with a temperature range of 0 – 300’C and
humidity range 0 – 100%; voltage of 3 – 5V which is compatible with the arduino controller.

ACTUATORS

Two different pairs of fans are used for the inlet and outlet. This is due to the fact that outlet requires a
fan with a higher air volume (in cubic feet meter).

The specifications of the outlet fan are:

Fan life – 40,000 hours

Power – 2.4W

Air volume – 30CFM

Fan size – 80𝑚𝑚 × 80𝑚𝑚 × 25𝑚𝑚

Heat sink material – aluminium.

Fan speed – 3500rpm

Quantity – 2pcs

The specifications for the outlet fan are:

Fan life – 30,000 hours

Power – 2.4W

Air volume – 45CFM

Fan size – 90𝑚𝑚 × 90𝑚𝑚 × 25𝑚𝑚

Heat sink material: aluminium.

Fan speed – 20,000rpm

Quantity – 2pcs