Patent ID: 8315741

Claim:
A system comprising: a rotary apparatus comprising a rotor and a housing, the rotor and the housing forming a gas path therebetween; a control law for controlling flow along the gas path; and a processor for generating an output to direct the control law, the processor comprising: an output module for generating the output as a function of a plurality of rotor and housing temperatures defined along the gas path; a plurality of temperature modules for determining time derivatives of the rotor and housing temperatures; a thermodynamic module for modeling boundary conditions along the gas path, based on the rotor and housing temperatures; a comparator for determining errors in the boundary conditions; and an estimator for estimating the rotor and housing temperatures based on the time derivatives, such that the errors are minimized and the flow is controlled along the gas path; wherein the output comprises a heat transfer signal based on heat transfer from the flow to the rotary apparatus, and wherein the control law controls the flow along the gas path by controlling fuel flow to the rotary apparatus based on the heat transfer signal.