This invention provides a precise gas flow
control system and method for multi-mode fire experiments, comprising: a host computer, an RS485
bus, and at least one
mass flow controller; the host computer is communicatively connected to the
mass flow controller via the RS485
bus; the host computer is equipped with
control software written in Python; the host computer is used to calculate the target gas flow rate according to a preset fire
growth model, perform closed-loop flow regulation on the
mass flow controller through the feedforward-PID composite
control algorithm, and preprocess the flow
setpoint using cubic spline interpolation
smoothing before sending it to the mass flow controller; the mass flow controller is used to adjust the gas output flow rate according to the received flow
setpoint and provide real-time feedback of the actual flow rate value to the host computer; this invention uses general-purpose hardware and open-source
software, is low-cost, highly scalable, and has an average absolute error of less than 1% in control accuracy, making it suitable for fire science experiments and teaching practice.