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Abstract A simple simulation using SIMULINK is presented to model the thermal/control behaviour of a domestic gas boiler.
The simulation was the first step in a research programme to investigate the efficacy of control using an oxygen sensor. A brief
review of boiler control is used to outline current practice and research developments. Ratio control in several forms has been
investigated. Performance improvements using control incorporating an Oxygen sensor are examined. These indicate that a
modest fuel saving of the order of 5% is possible from the addition of the sensor to the control loop. The performance of the sensor
is insensitive to small changes in position and to a 10% variation in the time constant of the sensor. The fuel air ratio varies
throughout the heating cycle with only a small period when either system achieves accurate control
Keywords-Boiler contr; ratio control; oxygen sensor; SIMULINK; PID control
I.
INTRODUCTION
III.
II.
BOILER CONTROL
BOILER PROCESSES
Techniques used in boilers are similar to other methods
developed for process control and used terminology
somewhat different to the main control community wedded
to servomechanisms.
Reference [3] describes these
techniques in a seminal work. Many industrial procedures
in use today are included in this reference with the
exception that most are now implemented in digital form
using microprocessors. These procedures were classical in
22
5
4
7
6
9
9
5
4
LS
HS
9
9
F
23
The maximum gas flow rate is 0.7 l/s and the central
heating water flow rate and hence the flow rate for the
primary heat exchanger is constant at is 0.37 l/s. With the
domestic heating enabled, the take off is 12 l/min using a
mains supply at ambient temperature Te.
The gas valve appears to be a propriety servo gas valve
with PID control of pressure. Data from a typical
commercial Honeywell valve VK4105G has been used to
model this behavior. This has a time constant of 1 second.
The valve controls pressure and this relationship is roughly
proportional to the square of the Pulse Width Modulation
(PWM) signal in percentage. Since the flow rate in any
valve is proportional to the square root of pressure
difference, we can justifiable say that the control of flow
rate is approximately linear with PWM.
The heat exchanger characteristics were not available
and modeling this part is left to a more advanced and later
model. The heat exchange process is much lower than the
control actions.
From discussions with the engineers at Ideal it appears
that the fan is controlled via PWM speed control. The flow
rate is NOT measured and a rotational speed is selected and
controlled via a PID controller rather than a phase-locked
loop. They did not reveal how long it took the fan to ramp
up to speed, nor did they supply any details of the fan inertia
etc. in order to calculate it. From measurements on other
boilers the time constant of the fan is between 12 and 20
seconds.
Since the control sequencing of the microprocessor is
not available, discrete representation of the control system
has not been attempted. Due to the long time constants this
is not likely to cause serious errors. No data is yet available
to indicate any connection between the air/fuel ratio and the
burner performance and this has therefore been omitted
from this simple first
%O2
5
4
7
6
9
Figure 3 Cross-limiting with O2 trim control
V. DESCRIPTION OF SYSTEM
qa
A. Physical Equations
We assume that no losses in heat occur except via the
heat exchangers. The energy balance for the Primary Heat
exchanger HEX1 is given by:
Ts 1
PWM
FanGain
6600/100
42/6600
mC
1
dT
m C T T Q
dt
10
10
24
m C
12
dT
m C T T Q 0
dt
10
dT
mC
m C T T Q
dt
20
20
Q Q
T
s
1
10
A. Fuel control
The boiler equations are set up at the top of the model
diagram as two variables T10 is obtained by integrating the
inputs from Qb and Qw. This explains why the response
curves increase linearly with constant fuel input. The other
variable T20 is obtained using a simple transfer function with
a time constant. In the real boiler a thermistor measures the
temperature T10 at a location down-stream of the heat
exchanger hence a time delay is incurred and the thermistor
has its' own time constant.
The time delay is constant
because the water flow rate is fixed. The error in T10 from
the required value, using a step function to ask for a change
in set point after a given time, is fed to a PID controller
which then requires a fuel rate via a maximum limit of 0.7
l/s. The lower limit has not been incorporated at this time.
This completes the boiler loop. The model incorporates
scopes at various points so that several variables can be
monitored. The second loop in this model is that for the
airflow again using a PID controller. A set-point in fuel flow
rate is devised from knowledge of the required operational
fuel/air ratio and a measure of the airflow and the real fuel
flow rate is subtracted to obtain an error which is then acted
upon by the PID controller. Since for the boiler represented
the airflow is not measured a signal from the controller is
used instead as would be in practice. An estimate of the real
fuel/ air ratio is computed in the model.
m C
m C
T
s
T Q
mC
mC
20
m C
T Q
m C
T
m C
s
m C
20
B. Sensor control
The prime difference in the two models (figure 9) is the
third loop introduced for the sensor to control the airflow.
The representation of the sensor includes a variable time
delay as the flow rate now varies and this is included. The
sensor is modeled as a simple time constant and gain. It is
the assumed that an output can be computed from the sensor
25
output to give fuel/air ratio at that time instant. The setpoint is fixed and a PID controller sends a signal via fixed
limits to the airflow controller as before. A block is include
so that a real airflow measurement can be included late as
OXYGEN
SENSOR
Flue
Fan
m a
Primaryheat
T10
exchanger(HEX1)
Ti
Burner
Water
pump
m 1
Waterfrom
Te
2
mains m
T20
Central
heating
water
To
radiators
Fuelflow
f
rate m
From
radiators
26
+u(t)
+qfset
%CO
PID
qf
Limiter
0100%
PWM
+qfreq
IX.
PID
T s 1
PWM
VIII.
CONCLUSIONS
PERFORMANCE
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research was
Development Agency.
A. Detailed outputs
The cyclic heat input to the domestic hot water is
shown in figure 10. The response of the primary hot water,
the secondary hot water temperature and fuel flow rate are
given in figures 11, 12 & 13. Apart from the gains of the
sensor PID controller every other constant is held the same.
Here we show the comparison of the two systems. There is
little difference between them (Figs 11, 12 & 13) in this
case and the O2 sensor system is clearly able to
When the sensor position and time constant are altered there
is only a second order effect on the overall response for a
variation of about 30% in values of position and time
constant.
The curves shown in figure 14 are
supported
by
the
London
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
27
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
m2
Mass of water in domestic hot water side of plate
heat exchanger
Mass flow rate of water in primary heat exchanger
m 1
Qb
Qw
Greek
1
2
Roman
Specific Heat at constant pressure
Specific Heat at constant volume
Mass of water in primary heat exchanger
Mass of water in primary side of plate heat exchanger
domestic water
s
Laplace variable
T1o
Temperature at exit of primary heat exchanger
T20
Temperature at exit of secondary heat exchanger
for domestic water
Environmental temperature at entry to secondary
Te
heat exchanger
Ti
Temperature at entry of primary heat exchanger
LIST OF SYMBOLS
Cp
Cv
m1
m12
m 2
m f
28
water flow
temperature sensor
exhaust
set point
master temperature controller
ratio computation
flow controllers
to burner
flow sensors
This model employs ratio control of fuel/airflow for a domestic boiler. Hotwater supply is triggered by a heat input
0.4
s+0.4
qf/qa
1
kc
cyclic demand
Qw
kd
0.4
Qw
20
Display
-0.0001686
environmental
tempTe
20
Display1
real airflow
T10
0.0714
T20
heat exchanger
time constant
airflow
measurement
0.0
f/a setpt
s
Integrator
kb
fuelenergy ka
computed fuel
-Kqf
Product2
qdf
1
T ransport
Delay
gas valve
s+1
airdisturbance
30
66
s+1
tempcorr
PWM
N
temp sensor
zeropwm
airflowsignal
air Controller1
PID
fan gain
measured temp CHW
0.0
2
temperror
setpointtemp
fan dynamics
5s+1
airflow
burner f /a ratio 1
1
-K s+0.4
1
To
recip
u
-K-
cyclic demand
Qw
s+1
Variable
Transport Delay
axd
0.0446
O2 sensor
kc
kd
Qw
T20
heat exchanger
time constant
0.4
f/a setpt
1
nI
1
u
1/qd
Display
environmental
tempTe
1t
u
O
20
T10
rfldel
1
s
-K -
limits to f /a ratio
kb
real airflow
Integrator
fuelenergy ka
-K-
computed fuel
qf
Product 2
1
airflow
measurement
air Controller
qdf
Transport
Delay
PID
gas valve
s+1
airdisturbance
Display 1
30
temp sensor
zeropwm
gas flow limits 1
PWM
N
66
5
tempcorr
1
s+1
airflowsignal
air Controller 1 PID
fan gain
measured temp CHW
-K2
temperror
fan dynamics
setpointtemp
1
5s+1
29
25
20
W
k/
w
Q
15
10
20
40
60
80
100
Time/s
120
140
160
180
200
70
60
g
e
d/
1
T
er
ut
ar
e
p
m
et
r
et
a
w
r
eil
o
B
50
40
30
O2 sensor
Ratio control
20
10
20
40
60
80
100
Time/s
120
140
160
180
200
30
50
40
g
e
d/
2
T
er
ut
ar
e
p
m
e
T
30
20
10
O2 sensor
ratio control
20
40
60
80
100
Time/s
120
140
160
180
200
160
180
200
0.4
O2 sensor
ratio control
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
20
40
60
80
100
Time/s
120
140
31
Variation in Air/Fuel Ratio for varying Sensor time constant and position
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
oi
t
a
R
ri
A
l
e
u
F
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
10
15
20
25
Time/s
30
35
40
45
50
0.1
Ratio Control
FARD = 0.0714
0.08
oi
t
ar
ri
A/
l
e
u
F
Oxygen sensor
FAR=0.068
0.06
FAR= 0.0654
FAR=0.7162, time=20.302s
0.04
0.02
10
20
30
40
Time/sec
50
60
70
80
32