Virtual boiler simulation and control using lab VIEW

Abstract

Worldwide, most electric power is produced by steam-electric power plants, which produce about 86% of all electric generation, enough reason to make it one of the most important challenges to nowadays engineers to develop more accurate models and virtual simulators, which is the main objective of our work. In this project, a boiler simulator is built based on physical (mass and energy) conservation laws, we first used MATLAB/SIMULINK to construct each subsystem model alone, and then the subsystems were integrated to get the full boiler system implemented. To enhance the performance of the boiler a Drum level control loop is implemented and simulated based on two main methods, one-element control and three element control. For interfacing we used LabVIEW to create a user accessible front panel, we then made use of the DAQ-USB6009 to communicate data between the boiler simulator and the control which was implemented in a different computer.