Performance of Different Control Strategies for Boiler Drum Level Control using LabVIEW

摘要

In boilers, chemical energy of stored fuel is converted into the heat energy and this heat energy is absorbed by the water which converts it into steam. Too low a boiler drum level may overheat boiler tubes and damage them. Too high a level may interfere with separating moisture from steam and transfer moisture into the turbine, which reduces the boiler efficiency. The safe operation of the boiler becomes critical. This paper presents the implementation details of the different types of boiler drum level control systems designed in the Circuit Design and Simulation toolkit of Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW). The work provides insight into the various control strategies and PID controller tuning methods such as Zeigler-Nichols method, Tyreus-Luyben method and Internal Model Control (IMC) method. Comparative study is made on the performance of the PID using the above mentioned methods.