Model Reference Adaptive Control for Steam Temperature of Utility Boilers

A discrete time adaptive control system was applied to steam temperature control of a boiler for electric power generation. In the system, the adaptive controllers are installed in parallel with conventional PID controllers for superheated and reheated steam temperatures. The plant dynamics was described with polynomials whose parameters are adaptively estimated from the data of the plant under routine operation. Adaptive control signals are synthesized on the basis of the estimated parameters so as to achieve the specified control objective. The system was applied to a 375 MW plant and found to be effective for realizing better performance than the conventional PID control system.