ADANI INSTITUTE OF INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS MODELLING & SIMULATION

Modelling Door Closer & Simulation in MATLAB

Submitted to : Prof. Girija Sharan

Dharmani Bhavesh C.

Kumar Abhishek
PGPIM-12-13
Roll No.- 6
1. Description of a door closer

A door closer is a mechanical device that closes a door, in general after someone opens it, or
after it was automatically opened.

2. Purpose of the Study:

The purpose of this study is to obtain a mathematical model for the door closer such that its
observations of its behaviour and analysis holds true for the real door closer.
Developing mathematical model and solving them is more convenient rather than testing actual
systems, we model the system using mathematical equations and then analyse its behaviour.
Door closers are used on doors to pull the door and shut slowly enough to avoid slamming,
which could cause damage to the door itself. The main elements of door closer are a spring and a
damper. A mathematical model of the door closer will be derived and its behaviour will be
analysed.

3. Observation:

1. The door is initially at rest. It is at an angle of 0 degree.

2. The door rotates around the hinge when someone pushes the door. When the door is left at an
angle less than 90 degrees, the door returns to rest position.
3. The movement is limited to 90 degrees from rest. At this position the door is completely open
4. If the door is pulled to an angle and then released, it will try to reach its rest position at an
angle of 0 degree without slamming.
5. The door initially moves with higher speeds but as it comes near the rest position, its speed
decreases.
6. The door eventually closes without slamming.

Based on the above observation, it can be said that

The door closer has to be made of spring and damper. The spring acted in compression so as to
push the plunger back to its original position from a deflected position, caused by opening the
door. The damper then opposed the motion of the spring, slowing the motion enough to avoid
slamming the door

1. When the door is pulled, kinetic energy is converted to potential energy and stored in the
spring.
2. When the door is released, potential energy is converted to kinetic energy.
Mathematical Model

x- displacement of door by user

m- effective mass of door
c- damping coefficient
k- spring constant

At t = t0, x = -x0, which implies that door is pulled at 900

Let x= y1,

= y2,

;
 = +

System Matrix A State Vector\ B

MATLAB Code
%initial condition response of doorcloser
m=2;
c=500;
k=1000;
a=[0 1; -k/m -c/m];
c= [1 0];
x0= [-10;0];
sys=ss(a,[],c,[]);
Ts=0;
Td=3;
[y,t,x]=initial(sys,x0);
figure;
subplot(2,1,1)
plot(t,y);
xlabel('time ( s )')
ylabel('door displacement ( cm )')
title('response of door closure to open and
release','fontsize',14)
subplot(2,1,2)
plot (t,x(:,2));
xlabel('time ( s )')
ylabel('door velocity( cm/s )')
Results:
Figure: 1

c= 500; k= 1000
Here we can observe that, door is taking approximately 2.25 seconds to close, but its velocity at
that instant is not zero. Thus door is not closing in a smooth manner but banging.

Figure: 2

c= 500; k= 0
Since the spring constant is zero, the door will stay at x= -10 i.e at open position.
Figure: 3

c=0; k= 1000
As the damper coefficient is zero, the door will continue swinging from -10 to +10 displacement.

Figure: 4

As we increase the damping coefficient the time taken by the door to get closed will go on
increasing.
c= 500000; k=1000.