Genetic - PID control for a fire tube boiler

Abstract

Fire tube shell boiler is probably one of the most widely used boilers in the process industries and residential areas for process heating and steam/hot water supply. To achieve optimal design and operation of these plants, precise control system design is required. The closed loop control problem of the process is investigated, where high static accuracy and high speed of response with no overshoot are required as a technical design criterion. The proportional, integral and derivative (PID) and genetic-PID polices are applied to control both of the water/steam temperature and the water level of the plant. The powerful capabilities of tuning PID controller based on genetic algorithm in locating the optimal solutions to a given optimization problem are exploited by determining the parameter of the PID controller in order to meet specified performance objectives. The fire tube boiler that fitted with genetic-PID controller has a reliable dynamic performance as compared with the system fitted with PID controller