Design and simulation of an automated steam pressure control system for a bagasse fired boiler.

Abstract

The sugar industry has been able to adapt. cogeneration as self-reliable opportunity in manufacturing with bagasse as its fuel. The bagasse fired boilers convert chemical energy in bagasse to thermal energy and this process is characterized by high pressures and temperatures. Currently, the steam. pressure control. in many sugar industries including SCOUI, (case study area) is manual which does not offer many benefits to boiler operations such as energy saving, reduction in downtime, increase in boiler efficiency and reduction in hazards among others. 'This study has focused on designing and simulating an. automated steam pressure control system using the bagasse feeders and forced draught fans as actuators in the control of feeding rates of bagasse and air respectively. Pressure is Controlled automatically using the programmable logical Controller (PLC) and is measured using a pressure sensor, The System was modelled using MatLab Simulink tool. Arduino for coding and Proteus for simulation. The consist of a microcontroller to receive input signals from the pressure sensor, processes the data acquired and sends the output signal to the LCD to be displayed. The results of the study show that the designed system was able to maintain the steam pressure within the safe operational range of a medium pressure (1.5 2.0 MPa or 225-300 psi) bagasse fired boiler and there was a direct proportionality between the steam pressure and temperature at the super heater. The simulation validated the expected behavior of System hardware and technically economical when implemented. Sugar industries should adopt the system to better steam pressure control in bagasse fired boilers and reduce hazards. Further work is required to improve the steam pressure control of a bagasse fired boiler with recommendations such as inclusion of a bagasse drier considering boiler loads and a dumping grate type of furnace design among others.