Process Control HCHE 322

Chikava F.K.

Department of Chemical and Processing Engineering

Lecture 4 – Boiler Control

BASIC COMPONENTS

• Furnace – This is where air and fuel are combined and burned to produce
combustion gases.
• Water-tube system – Water inside the tubes is heated by combustion gases.
The water-tube system is connected to the steam drum.
• Steam drum – This is where liquid and vapor are separated. The water
vapor is withdrawn and is passed through to the superheater.
• Superheater – The water vapor is exposed to hotter combustion gases to
generate superheated steam.

System Requirements

(i) We want complete combustion of the fuel without too much excess air.
(ii) We want to maintain water level such that feedwater flow = steam flow.

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 (iii) Steam control – Temperature and pressure of the steam should be
controlled as the demand for steam fluctuates.

Boiler Pressure and Firing Rate Control

• Boiler outlet steam pressure indicates balance between steam demand

(process load) and steam supply (firing rate) - firing rate is manipulated to
control to a constant header pressure.
• Firing rate signal becomes set point for fuel and air flow controls of
combustion control system.

Air/Fuel Ratio Controls

• There is need for correct stoichiometric amount of air to combust fuel plus
some % excess to account for nonideal mixing and imperfect combustion
conditions.

O2 Trim Control

• The amount of excess air is important for economic and environmental

reasons.
• Analysis of the stack (flue) gas (O2 or CO) adjusts the required fuel/air
ratio.
• A flue gas oxygen analyser supplies feedback on the combustion process
and is the basis for trimming the air/fuel ratio to maintain optimum
combustion.

Water Drum Level Control

• The water drum level must be maintained in narrow range. If it’s too low
it will uncover boiler tubes resulting in overheating and if it’s too high it
leads to liquid carryover (inadequate disengaging volume).

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Steam Temperature Control

• Feedwater is added to a desuperheater between the primary and secondary

superheaters for steam temperature control.

BOILER FIRING CONTROL SCHEME

Full-metered Control

• Full metered control measures both the fuel and air flows in order to
improve the control of the air and fuel ratio. This control scheme:
(i) Compensates for fuel and combustion air flow variations
(ii) Provides active safety constraints to prevent hazardous conditions
• In a metered control system, three measurements are used to balance the
air/fuel mixture i.e. steam header pressure, fuel flow and air flow.

• In this scheme, fuel always leads. This is safe during fuel decreases, but
during fuel increases there will be a temporary drop in the actual air/fuel
ratio, possibly leaving uncombusted fuel in the flue gases.

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Cross-Limited Control
• The cross-limiting (or lead-lag) circuit assures a dynamic air-rich mixture
since the airflow set-point will always lead the fuel on an increasing load
and lag when the load is decreasing, thus preventing an excess fuel
situation.

• Analysis – what happens when suddenly the users start drawing more steam
from the boiler system:
1. Drum pressure drops.
2. PC asks for more fuel.
3. LS only passes in the minimum of the 2 and at this point the minimum
fuel is what is presently required by the current air flow rate
(incorporating the Air/Fuel ratio).
4. Fuel FC implements the allowed Fuel setpoint from 3.

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 5. In the meantime, the HS passes the maximum of the DESIRED and
ACTUAL fuel flows on to the air flow ratio controller, and the resultant
air setpoint is implemented by the air FC.
6. Thus, in the case of an increasing fuel DESIRE, the air flow will start
to increase ahead of the actual fuel. The return signal to the LS
consequently allows an increasing setpoint to be passed to the fuel FC,
until this setpoint finally matches the DESIRED value.
• The above discussion clarifies that air has to lead fuel into the furnace –
i.e. we shall temporarily be in excess of the air-fuel ratio setpoint during
the transient. Similar reasoning shows that air will lag fuel out. Thus, we
are always rich in air during transients, to ensure complete combustion.

BOILER DRUM LEVEL CONTROL

• A drum level control system tightly controls the level whatever the
disturbances, level change, increase/decrease of steam demand, feedwater
flow variations.

Single-Element Drum Level Controller

• Level is controlled using a simple feedback loop.

• Control is based on the boiler drum level measurement only.

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 • It takes some time to effect changed in this type of mechanism thus it is
only used wherever the residence time is very large.
• It is, therefore, an acceptable control strategy only for small boilers with
slow load changes.
• As load changes become more frequent, unpredictable, or severe; this type
of level control cannot respond quicky enough to compensate. More
information must be included and processed to predetermine the amount of
water to be added to the drum to compensate for load changes.

Two-Element Drum Level Control

• In two-level control, steam flow and boiler drum level are measured.
• The drum level is controlled using a cascade configuration where the drum
level controller sends a flow setpoint to the feedwater flow controller.
• The accuracy is much better and also faster than the single element control.

Three-Element Drum Level Control

• It forms a cascade plus feedforward system.

• The steam flow is used as a feedforward signal.

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• The output from the level control is input into the feedforward steam
flowrate and the measurement of the steam flowrate is used to set the
feedwater flow rate.
• When the steam flow goes up, the feedwater flow setpoint is increased
automatically.
• This combination is the most accurate among all three. The only drawback
in that the three-element control cannot be used for low boiler load
conditions because at such conditions it is very difficult to measure steam
flowrate accurately. At high boiler load, this mechanism is most useful.

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Application Chart for Drum Level Control System

System Load Change Typical Applications

Classification Capabilities
Magnitude Rate

Single- Moderate Slow Institutional and industrial heating

element plants.

Steady process conditions.

Two-element Moderate Moderate Industrial plants with essentially

continuous type processes and good
feedwater regulation.

Three- Wide Fast Combination of batch and

element continuous type operations such that
plant steam load characteristics
varies continuously and usually
unpredictably. Most industrial power
applications fall into this category.

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