Boiler drum’s water level

control

Mukul Kashiwal M.Tech

(Marine engineering and
management)
Why the boiler drum water level is to be
maintained?
 Boiler steam drum water level is one of the important parameters of power plant
that must be measured and controlled.

 If the water level is too low it may cause damage to boiler tube by overheating

 On the other hand too high drum water level leads to improper function of
separators, difficulty in temperature controlling and damage in super-heater tubes.

 Turbine may also be damaged by moisture or water treatment chemicals carryover.

Also the drum pressure control is adversely affected by poor level control.
Steam Drum water level error
 Under boiling condition, steam supporting field products such as bubbles exist below the
water/steam level interface. There bubbles have volume and therefore displace water to
create a misrepresentation of the true water level in the drum.

 Pressure in the drum has another effect upon drum level. Steam bubbles are compressed
under pressure. Due to varying demands of load, the drum pressure changes and therefore
the steam bubbles expand or contract respective to these pressure changes. A higher steam
demands will cause the drum pressure to drop, and the steam bubbles to expand to give the
appearance of a water level that it truly is.

 The fictitious higher water level cause the feed water input to be shut down at a time when
more water is really required. A surge in water level as a result of the drum pressure
decreasing is called swell. A water level decrease due to drum pressure increase is called
shrink.
Measurement techniques of drum level
 Gauge Glass
 Electronic Probe Level Sensors
 Wet Leg System
Gauge Glass
Electronic Probe Level Sensors
 The technology uses the well established principle of resistivity discrimination
between steam and water to provide a clear indication of water level in a boiler
drum

 The side-arm column stimulates condensate flow and circulation. This flushing
effect results in the water inside the column being purer than the water in the
drum.

 The sensing element is a Probe with an insulated tip inserted in a side-arm water
column. If a voltage is applied to the tip, conduction occurs between the tip and
the inside wall of the column.

 An open circuit occurs when it is in steam state means water is less.

Wet Leg System
 "wet leg" level measurement, where both tubes running from the drum to the level
transmitter are filled with water.

 “wet leg" measurement means that the high pressure port on the DP (differential
pressure) transmitter should be connected to the top of the drum and the low
pressure port connected to the bottom.

 The measurement is from the top down - if the vessel fills with cold water up to the
tap, the ports of the DP cell will have the same water head above them so the DP will
be zero.

 Falling level will raise the measured DP - the pressure on the low tap will fall relative
that of the high tap still full of liquid.
BOILER DRUM LEVEL CONTROL
 The information on boiler drum level as measured by above procedure is fed to various process
control units, DCS(Data Control System), SCADA(Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) etc. for
analysis. After analysing various information from the drum level system and other associated sub-
systems, the actuating signals are generated from control units to actuate the control valves of
boiler feed water inlet as well as outlet and steam outlet, to make them open or close.

 The following controls are used to control drum level-

 Single Element Drum Level Control

 Two Element Drum Level Control

 Three -Elements Drum Level Control

Single Element Drum Level Control
 The feed-water pump push water through feed-water 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 feed-water control valves to keep
the water level in the drum as close to set point as possible.

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
controller’s integral time is set too short (i.e. high integral gain).
 2. Inverse Response

 If the drum level is low, and more feed-water is added to increase it, the drum
tends to decrease first before increasing. This is because the cooler feed-water
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.
Two Element Control
 If a feed pump is started up or shut down, the total feed-water flow rate changes. This
causes a deviation in drum level, upon which the drum level controller will act and
change the feed-water control valve position to compensate.

 A faster control action is needed for dealing with changes in feed-water flow rate. This
faster action is obtained by controlling the feed-water flow rate itself, in addition to the
drum level.

 To control both drum level and feed-water flow rate, cascade control is used. The drum
level controller becomes the primary controller and its output drives the set point of the
feed-water flow controller, the secondary control loop. This arrangement is also called
two-element control, because both drum level and feed-water flow rate are measured
and used for control.
Three -Elements Drum Level 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 feed-water flow controller. In this way the feed-water flow rate is
adjusted to match the steam flow.

 Changes in steam flow rate will almost immediately be counteracted by similar

changes in feed-water 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.
References
 IMPORTANCE OF THREE-ELEMENTS BOILER DRUM LEVEL CONTROL AND ITS
INSTALLATION IN POWER PLANT by Sanjoy Kumar Chakraborty , Nilotpal
Manna and Surodh Dey

 IARJSET ISSN (online) 2393-8021 ISSN (print) 2394-1588 international

advanced research journal in science, engineering and technology national
conference on emerging trends in engineering and technology (NCETET’16)
lourdes matha college of science & technology, Thiruvananthapuram vol. 3,
special issue 3, august 2016 by Shiji S.R, Anish .S , Swapna .M

 Boiler controls & instrumentation Presented at m/s. Magadi soda company

,magadi , Kenya by Thermodyne Technologies private Limited
Thank You