Design and Simulation of a Multi-Channel Biomass Hot Air Furnace with an Intelligent Temperature Control System

Abstract

Timely and effective drying of agricultural products is crucial for ensuring the quality and yield of grains. Biomass drying enhances energy utilization and reduces energy pressure. To this end, a novel multi-channel circulating biomass hot air furnace was designed to provide precise control of the heat source for grain drying, thereby improving the efficiency and quality of the drying process. The combustion process utilizes a multi-channel combined air supply to ensure complete combustion of biomass pellet fuel. During the heat exchange process, heat exchange plates isolate hot and cold areas, discharging combustion exhaust, while ensuring a pure air output. Using rapeseed as the drying subject, a temperature controller based on adaptive fuzzy PID was designed, targeting the biomass hot air furnace’s heat exchange system for modeling and verifying the model with the step response method. Model simulations were conducted in Matlab’s Simulink module using both adaptive fuzzy PID and traditional PID controllers, for a given signal. The settling times for the conventional PID and fuzzy PID were 445 s and 364 s, respectively, with overshoots of 20.1% and 6.3%, showing that the fuzzy PID controller performed better in terms of control performance. The validation tests showed that both control methods could maintain the temperature within ±5 °C. Compared to traditional PID control, the adaptive fuzzy PID control achieved a precision of ±3 °C. At the target temperature of 90 °C, the error was reduced to 3.7%, with a stabilization time of 1014 s. The use of fuzzy PID control exhibited better dynamic response characteristics, meeting the drying needs of rapeseed. This study provides a theoretical basis for the structural design and control system design of biomass hot air furnaces.