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In response to current demands for energy efficiency and pressure control in residential and industrial buildings, pumping systems have been implemented to supply water at constant pressure. However, conventional control systems, based on proportional-integral (PI) controllers, focus solely on maintaining a constant water pressure near the pump outlet, without guaranteeing it throughout the entire building. This approach is inefficient, as small fluctuations in the pump outlet are amplified as the point of consumption increases, both vertically and horizontally. This is due to the lack of consideration of the dynamic behavior of the process, which varies depending on water consumption, the presence of nonlinearities, and delays. This thesis addresses this problem by developing a pump control system designed to supply water at a constant and stable pressure throughout an entire building. The proposed control strategy incorporates a set of sensors,
including one at the discharge and others strategically distributed throughout the facility.
To implement this control, a mathematical model of the building's pumping system was derived and linearized. The resulting model not only represents a significant advance for future research in pumping system control, with potential applications in the industrial, construction, and sanitation sectors, but also presents a detailed methodology for developing the proposed control.
This methodology encompasses the decoupling of the linearized model from the plant, controller design, scenario selection for various flow demands, and the calculation of the controllers' programmed gain parameters. The simulations performed demonstrate the proposed system's ability to achieve a more stable and constant pressure throughout the building. Additionally, a theoretically grounded methodology for calculating controller parameters is provided. The thesis concludes with a proposal for the practical implementation of the control in a constant and stable pressure water pumping system in a local building, highlighting its applicability in real-life situations.