A very common control problem, and one used in many examples elsewhere, is

that of controlling the level in a boiler drum. Many industrial plants have boilers
for generating process steam, and of course boilers are central to thermal power
generation.
The boiler drum is where water and steam are separated. Controlling its level is
critical if the level becomes too low, the boiler can run dry resulting in
mechanical damage of the drum and boiler piping. If the level becomes too high,
water can be carried over into the steam pipework, possibly damaging
downstream equipment.
The design of the boiler drum level control strategy is normally described as
single-element, two-element, or three-element control. This article explains the
three designs.
Single-element Control (Feedback Control)
One or more boiler feedwater pumps push water through one or more feedwater
control valves into the boiler drum. The water level in the drum is measured with
a pressure and temperature-compensated level transmitter. The drum level
controller compares the drum level measurement to the set point and modulates
the feedwater control valves to keep the water level in the drum as close to set
point as possible. Variable-speed boiler feed pumps are sometimes used to
control the level instead of valves.
The simple feedback control design described above is called single-element
control, because it uses only a single feedback element for control the drum
level measurement.

Drum Level Controller Tuning

1. Integrating Process
From a controls point-of-view, the boiler drum is an integrating process. This
means that any mismatch between inflow (water) and outflow (steam) will cause
a continuous change in the drum level.
Integrating loops are difficult to tune, and can easily become unstable if the
controllers integral time is set too short (i.e. high integral gain). The processimposed requirement for a long integral time makes the loop slow to recover
from disturbances to the drum level.
2. Inverse Response

To further complicate matters, the boiler drum level is notorious for its inverse
response. If the drum level is low, and more feedwater is added to increase it,
the drum level tends to decrease first before increasing. This is because the
cooler feedwater causes some of the steam in the evaporator to condense,
causing the volume of water/steam to decrease, and hence the drop in drum
level.
Conventional feedback control has difficulty in coping with this inverse response.
A control loop using high controller gain and derivative action may work well in
other level applications, but it will quickly go unstable on a boiler drum level.
Stability is best achieved by using a low controller gain, long integral time, and
no derivative. However, these settings make the controllers response very
sluggish and not suitable for controlling a process as critical as boiler drum level.
Major Disturbances
Drum level is affected by changes in feedwater and steam flow rate. But because
of the very slow response of the feedback control loop, changes in feed flow or
steam flow can cause very large deviations in boiler drum level. Single-element
drum level control can work well only if the residence time of the drum is very
large to accommodate the large deviations, but this is seldom the case
especially in the power industry. For this reason, the control strategy is normally
expanded to also include feedwater and steam flow.
Two-element Control (Cascade Control)
Many boilers have two or three feed pumps that will be switched on or off
depending on boiler load. If a feed pump is started up or shut down, the total
feedwater flow rate changes. This causes a deviation in drum level, upon which
the drum level controller will act and change the feedwater control valve position
to compensate. As explained above, the level controllers response is likely very
slow, so switching feed pumps on and off can result in large deviations in drum
level.
A faster control action is needed for dealing with changes in feedwater flow rate.
This faster action is obtained by controlling the feedwater flow rate itself, in
addition to the drum level.
To control both drum level and feedwater flow rate, cascade control is used. The
drum level controller becomes the primary controller and its output drives the
set point of the feedwater flow controller, the secondary control loop. This
arrangement is also called two-element control, because both drum level and
feedwater flow rate are measured and used for control.

Two-Element Drum Level Control

Three-element Control (Cascade + Feedforward Control)

Similar to feed flow, changes in steam flow can also cause large deviations in
drum level, and could possibly trip the boiler. Changes in steam flow rate are
measurable and this measurement can be used to improve level control very
successfully by using a feedforward control strategy.
For the feedforward control strategy, steam flow rate is measured and used as
the set point of the feedwater flow controller. In this way the feedwater flow rate
is adjusted to match the steam flow. Changes in steam flow rate will almost
immediately be counteracted by similar changes in feedwater flow rate. To
ensure that deviations in drum level are also used for control, the output of the
drum level controller is added to the feedforward from steam flow.
The combination of drum level measurement, steam flow measurement, and
feed flow measurement to control boiler drum level is called three-element
control.

Three-Element Drum Level Control

Low-load Conditions
Although three-element drum level control is superior to single- or twoelement control, it is normally not used at low boiler loads. The reason
is that steam flow measurement can be very inaccurate at low rates of
steam flow. Once the boiler load is high enough for steam flow to be
measured accurately, the feedforward must be activated bumplessly.
3 Element Strategy
As shown below (click for large view), most boilers of medium to high
pressure today use a 3-element boiler control strategy. The term 3element control refers to the number of process variables (PVs) that
are measured to effect control of the boiler feedwater control valve.
These measured PVs are:
liquid level in the boiler drum,
flow of feedwater to the boiler drum, and
flow of steam leaving the boiler drum.

Maintaining liquid level in the boiler steam drum is the highest priority.
It is critical that the liquid level remain low enough to guarantee that
there is adequate disengaging volume above the liquid, and high
enough to assure that there is water present in every steam generating
tube in the boiler. These requirements typically result in a narrow range
in which the liquid level must be maintained.
The feedwater used to maintain liquid level in industrial boilers often
comes from multiple sources and is brought up to steam drum pressure
by pumps operating in parallel. With multiple sources and multiple
pumps, the supply pressure of the feedwater will change over time.
Every time supply pressure changes, the flow rate through the valve,
even if it remains fixed in position, is immediately affected.
So, for example, if the boiler drum liquid level is low, the level
controller will call for an increase in feedwater flow. But consider that if
at this moment, the feedwater supply pressure were to drop. The level
controller could be opening the valve, yet the falling supply pressure
could actually cause a decreased flow through the valve and into the
drum.
Thus, it is not enough for the level controller to directly open or close
the valve. Rather, it must decide whether it needs more or less feed
flow to the boiler drum. The level controller transmits its target flow as
a set point to a flow controller. The flow controller then decides how
much to open or close the valve as supply pressure swings to meet the
set point target.
This is a 2-element (boiler liquid level to feedwater flow rate) cascade
control strategy. By placing this feedwater flow rate in a fast flow
control loop, the flow controller will immediately sense any variations in
the supply conditions which produce a change in feedwater flow. The
flow controller will adjust the boiler feedwater valve position to restore
the flow to its set point before the boiler drum liquid level is even
affected. The level controller is the primary controller (sometimes
referred to as the master controller) in this cascade, adjusting the set
point of the flow controller, which is the secondary controller
(sometimes identified as the slave controller).
The third element in a 3-element control system is the flow of steam
leaving the steam drum. The variation in demand from the steam
header is the most common disturbance to the boiler level control
system in an industrial steam system.
By measuring the steam flow, the magnitude of demand changes can be
used as a feed forward signal to the level control system. The feed
forward signal can be added into the output of the level controller to
adjust the flow control loop set point, or can be added into the output

of the flow control loop to directly manipulate the boiler feedwater

control valve. The majority of boiler level control systems add the feed
forward signal into the level controller output to the secondary
(feedwater flow) controller set point. This approach eliminates the need
for characterizing the feed forward signal to match the control valve
characteristic.
Actual boiler level control schemes do not feed the steam flow signal
forward directly. Instead, the difference between the outlet steam flow
and the inlet water flow is calculated. The difference value is directly
added to the set point signal to the feedwater flow controller.
Therefore, if the steam flow out of the boiler is suddenly increased by
the start up of a turbine, for example, the set point to the feedwater
flow controller is increased by exactly the amount of the measured
steam flow increase.
Simple material balance considerations suggest that if the two flow
meters are exactly accurate, the flow change produced by the flow
control loop will make up exactly enough water to maintain the level
without producing a significant upset to the level control loop.
Similarly, a sudden drop in steam demand caused by the trip of a
significant turbine load will produce an exactly matching drop in
feedwater flow to the steam drum without producing any significant
disturbance to the boiler steam drum level control.
Of course, there are losses from the boiler that are not measured by the
steam production meter. The most common of these are boiler blow
down and steam vents (including relief valves) ahead of the steam
production meter. In addition, boiler operating conditions that alter the
total volume of water in the boiler cannot be corrected by the feed
forward control strategy. For example, forced circulation boilers may
have steam generating sections that are placed out of service or in
service intermittently. The level controller itself must correct for these
unmeasured disturbances using the normal feedback control algorithm.
Notes on Firing Control Systems
In general, firing control is accomplished with a Plant Master that
monitors the pressure of the main steam header and modulates the
firing rate (and hence, the steam production rate) of one or more
boilers delivering steam to the steam header. The firing demand signal
is sent to all boilers in parallel, but each boiler is provided with a Boiler
Master to allow the Plant Master demand signal to be overridden or
biased. When the signal is overridden, the steam production rate of the
boiler is set manually by the operator, and the boiler is said to be baseloaded. Most boilers on a given header must be allowed to be driven by
the Plant Master to maintain pressure control. Boilers that have the
Boiler Master set in automatic mode (passing the steam demand from
the Plant Master to the boiler firing control system) are said to be
swing boilers as opposed to base-loaded boilers.
The presence of heat recovery steam boilers on a steam header raises
new control issues because the steam production rate is primarily
controlled by the horsepower demand placed on the gas turbine
providing the heat to the boiler. If the heat recovery boiler operates at
a pressure above the header pressure, a separate pressure control
system can be used to blow off excess steam from the heat recovery
boiler when production is above the steam header demand. Note that
for maximum efficiency, most heat recovery boilers are fitted with duct
burners to provide additional heat to the boiler. The duct burner is

controlled with a Boiler Master like any other swing boiler. As long as
there are other large swing boilers connected to the steam header, the
other fired boilers can reduce firing as required when output increases
from the heat recovery boiler.