A technique using a Liapunov functional is developed for calculating the integrated squared error of linear distributed parameter systems. This is a straightforward extension of the technique developed by Puri and Weygandt for linear lumped parameter systems. Taking notice of the analogy between the original distributed parameter system and the lumped parameter system obtained by spatially discretizing the original system, an appropriate Liapunov functional may be chosen easily.
Two examples are shown: a heat exchanger whose wall temperature is held constant and another heat exchanger whose wall temperature is controlled by a proportional-integral controller. The latter exchanger is a distributed parameter system coupled with a lumped parameter system.