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DOI: 10.1177/0954406212471256
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published Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science
Moustafa Elshafei and Mohamed A. Habib
Softsensor for Estimation of Steam Quality in Riser Tubes of Boilers

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Original Article
Softsensor for estimation of steam quality
in riser tubes of boilers
Moustafa Elshafei
1
and Mohamed A Habib
2
Abstract
Steam fraction in riser tubes of boilers is a critical process variable which impacts the life of the tubes and could lead to
tube rupture, long boiler down time, and expensive repairs. Unfortunately this parameter is difficult to measure by
hardware sensors. This article presents a new neural network softsensor for estimation and monitoring steam mass and
volume fractions in riser tubes. First, conventional data were collected from a target industrial boiler. The data are then
used to develop a detailed nonlinear simulation model for the two phase flow in the riser tubes and risers and down-
comers water circulation. The model output is verified against the collected field data. Next, the boiler nonlinear model
is used to generate data covering a wide rage of operating conditions for training and testing the neural network. The
input of the neural network includes the heating power, the steam flow rate, the water feed rate, the drum level, and the
drum pressure. The neural networks predict the mass steam quality and the steam volume fractions. The softsensor
achieves a root mean square error on the test data less than 1.5%. The predicted steam quality is then compared with the
critical limits to guide the operators for safe and healthy operation of the boilers. The developed softsensor for esti-
mation of the steam quality has simple structure and can be implemented easily at the operator stations or the appli-
cation servers.
Keywords
Boiler dynamic modeling, boiler operation, boiler safety, softsensing, neural networks, nonlinear state estimation, boiler
steam fraction, boiler steam quality
Date received: 4 May 2012; accepted: 23 November 2012
Introduction
Boiler operations face many challenges stemming
from various economic, regulatory, and safety
issues. Steam generation boilers are commonly used
in many industrial processes, and may experience
rapid and dynamic changes in the steam demand.
The rapid changes in steam demand result in fast
changes in drum pressure and water level in the
drum. The changes in steam demand are normally
met by controlling the feedwater ow rates and
ring rates. Consequently, heat ux along the riser
and downcomer tubes is increased and may result in
tube overheating. Tube overheating may cause tube
failure resulting in unscheduled boiler shutdown that
may interrupt plant operation. The problem impact is
not only due to the cost of replacing defective parts
but also due to the frequent need of system shutdown
and the possible imminent safety hazards. The heat
ux along the riser tube causes steam to start gener-
ation from a distance say x
0
, and the mass fraction of
steam, and its corresponding volume fraction,
continue to increase upward along the riser tubes.
The larger the volume fraction of steam, the smaller
the inner surface area of the tube in contact with the
water liquid phase, leading to substantial and fast
decrease in the eective heat transfer to the water in
the riser tube. As a result, the wall spots, which are
not in contact with the water liquid phase, will exhibit
localized higher temperatures, severe thermal stresses,
and possibly rupture of the tubes. Accordingly, moni-
toring the steam quality and the natural circulation in
the riser/downcomers can provide valuable informa-
tion for the operator to ensure safe and reliable oper-
ation of the boilers. Unfortunately, measurement
of the steam quality in the riser tubes is not
1
Systems Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum
and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
2
Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia
Corresponding author:
Mohamed A Habib, Mechanical Engineering Department, King Fahd
University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
Email: mahabib@kfupm.edu.sa
Proc IMechE Part C:
J Mechanical Engineering Science
0(0) 111
! IMechE 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0954406212471256
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possible using conventional instrumentation systems.
Monitoring the steam mass fraction, known as the
steam quality, in the riser tubes can be utilized to
avoid the problems of overheating of the riser tubes
and to control boiler ring in order to prevent tubes
overheating.
This study is aimed at investigating methods to
provide a softsensor to estimate the steam quality in
the riser tubes for boiler health monitoring and to
ensure safe operation of the boiler. Specically, we
investigated the use of articial neural networks
(ANNs) for estimating the steam quality in the riser
tubes. The estimator relies on the available conven-
tional measurement only such as fuel ow rate, pres-
sure, drum level, feedwater rate, and steam ow rate.
To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the rst
technique ever for online estimation of the steam
quality in the riser tubes of boilers. Second, this
study is the rst attempt to apply articial intelligence
techniques, as ANN, for soft estimation of this par-
ameter. The ANN softsensor is a low-cost solution,
can easily be implemented on the existing boiler con-
trol systems, and can be integrated in the boiler con-
trol and management systems for better boiler
operation and safety. The study also investigates the
dynamic response of the steam quality at the exit of
the riser tubes in response to rapid variations in steam
demand.
Boiler dynamic modeling
Dynamic simulation models of boilers provide a very
cost eective tool to study plant transient character-
istics with the aim to improve the design and control
strategies to meet stringent operational requirements.
In the present investigation, it is essential to be able to
analyze the dynamic response of the boiler system due
to changes in the input values, system parameters, and
operating conditions. Such a goal can be achieved via
numerical simulation of the boilers system dynamic
model with sucient built-in details. Modeling of boi-
lers has been an on going eort for many years.
Dynamic models of boiler systems can be developed
on the basis of laws of conservation of mass, momen-
tum, and energy as applied to the various systems
components or modules. The model also necessitates
the use of several empirical formulae, e.g. to account
for friction eects, and heat transfer coecients. Also,
the uid properties must be accounted for as given by
the standard water-steam tables. In the literature,
there are several models of boiler systems built for
dierent objectives. Boilers are usually equipped
with many local controllers that need to be coordi-
nated to collectively reach a safe operation under
normal and abnormal system conditions. The eorts
have been mainly driven by control objectives. For
example; Astrom and Eklund,
1
Unbehauen and
Kocaarslan,
2
Kwatny and Berg,
3
and Astrom and
Bell
4
are among several other researchers.
A drum boiler model which runs in real time was
developed by Flynn and OMalley,
5
and validated
using dynamic data recorded on an actual plant. It
was indicated that the model can be used for dynamic
simulation studies in long time frames, greater than 30
s, in particular where assessment of deviations of
internal parameters, such as steam pressure, drum
level, and steam temperature outside safety limits is
essential. A computer program for simulation of
boiler start-up behavior was provided by Dong and
Tingkuan.
6
They indicated that, with the simulation
results, design and optimization of start-up proced-
ures for operation can be obtained. This can result
in minimum start-up losses by reducing the start-up
time as much as possible. Kim and Choi
7
developed a
model for water level dynamics in the drum-riser-
downcomer loop of a natural circulation drum-type
boiler. The work provides an investigation of the
response of water level dynamics to changes in
steam demand and/or heating rate. The results were
compared with those of Astrom and Bell.
4
Thermal stresses problem
The problem of thermally induced stresses in boilers
has been a concern for many years. These stresses can
cause failures which can be abrupt, termed as thermal
shock, or over a period of time, termed as fatigue fail-
ures. The latter are caused by repeated thermal over-
heating of the riser tubes. The impact of thermal stress
is amplied in the presence of sharp radius corners,
abrupt changes in thickness of metals, and corrosion.
Wolf and Neill
8
presented some protective measures
against thermally induced stress cycling. Among
these, the most important is the dierence between
boiler supply-water temperature and the system
return-water temperature. Design of boilers against
failure due to thermal stresses went through a
number of improvements going from trial and error
type development to numerical and experimental ana-
lyses. Among the important experimental work is that
of Kudryavtsey et al.
9
who developed a method for an
accelerated sample testing of boiler materials. In their
tests, the experimental conditions were made similar to
the operating conditions. The results from fatigue test-
ing of two dierent high strength boiler steels exposed
to dierent heats were used to compare the materials
with regard to their sensitivity to asymmetric loading.
The authors recommended that boiler manufacturers
should perform similar tests on the materials they
intend to use for building boilers and components.
Kruger et al.
10
developed an optimal control for
fast boiler start-ups. Noting that the major limiting
factor relevant to power plant start-ups is the thermal
stress for thick-walled components, they have incor-
porated in their nonlinear model thermal stress evalu-
ation modules. They presented a start-up control
simulation in which drum and superheater maximum
thermal stresses are set as pre-dened constraints.
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They showed by simulation that their model will
result in drastic reduction of start-up time. In a later
work, these same authors Kruger et al.
11
developed a
simple equation for estimating thermal stresses from
temperature during boiler start-ups. Emara-Shabaik
et al.
12
developed a dynamic model, which enables
the prediction of risers tubes temperature under vari-
ous operating conditions. The model is composed of
uid dynamics model representing the uid ow in the
drum downcomer-riser loop and a dynamic thermal
model of the risers temperature. Habib et al.
13
inves-
tigated the problem of boilers tube overheating. A
thermal model for the prediction of possible tube
overheating was developed. The developed model
incorporates a nonlinear state space dynamic model
which captures the important physical interactions of
the main variables of steam generation in drum boi-
lers. The system under consideration includes the
drum, the riser, and downcomer as its major compo-
nents. The dynamic response of the systems state
variables due to rapid rises in steam ow rate was
investigated.
State estimation
Process monitoring and control requires estimation of
process variables, which are often not measurable dir-
ectly. A cost eective approach to monitor these vari-
ables in real time is to employ softsensing or model-
based state estimation techniques. Dynamic model
based state estimation is a rich and highly active
area of research and many novel approaches have
emerged over past few years. State estimation of
heat exchanger components has been investigated by
Wallace and Clarke,
14
Lo et al.,
15,16
and Lu and
Hogg.
17
Lo et al.
15,16
used least mean squares estima-
tion of a boiler static model. Wallace and Clarke
14
and Lu and Hogg
17
applied lter state estimation
using dynamic boiler models. These studies on state
estimation of dynamic boiler models relied on the
extended Kalman lter (EKF), which is an extension
of the Kalman lter for nonlinear systems.
The basic Kalman lter will provide optimal state
estimation for systems that can be modeled by linear
system equations and Gaussian noise. The EKF
addresses the problem of state estimation of nonlinear
systems. EKF uses grid-based lters to approximate
the continuous state space as a set of discrete regions.
This necessitates the predenition of these regions and
becomes prohibitively computationally expensive
when dealing with high-dimensional state space.
Another diculty of EKF is that the state covariance
and the Jacobian matrix of the system model need to
be calculated. This is inconvenience since the algebraic
form of these equations may not be easy to derive.
The EKF is probably the most widely used estimation
algorithm for nonlinear systems. However, it is di-
cult to implement, dicult to tune, and only reliable
for systems that are almost linear.
In Julier and Uhlmann,
18
to overcome the prob-
lems associated with EKF limitations, the unscented
transformation (UT) was developed as a method to
propagate mean and covariance information through
nonlinear transformations. It is more accurate, easier
to implement, and uses the same order of calculations
as linearization. UT can be tailored in many ways to
address the subtleties of particular applications or
performance concerns, it is important to recognize
that the basic UT algorithm is conceptually very
simple and easy to apply. In this respect, the UT
has the same appeal as linearization for the EKF,
but unlike linearization the UT provides sucient
accuracy to be applied in many highly nonlinear l-
tering and control applications. Lo and Rathamarit
19
investigated the problem of state estimation of a
300 MW drum-type boiler using an unscented
Kalman lter to improve estimation accuracy by pre-
serving the nonlinearities of the boiler equations. The
boiler is modeled by a system of dierential state
equations for the dynamics of the circulation loop
and another set of partial dierential equations for
the heat exchangers such as the super heaters, rehea-
ter, and economizer.
On the other hand, inferential sensing techniques
have been gaining momentum recently as viable low-
cost alternatives to hardware sensors in various situ-
ations, as well as for nonlinear state estimation. The
core of inferential sensing is built on process models
and estimation techniques. Inferential techniques, also
known in the literature as softsensors, range from
statistical methods to modern heuristics techniques.
Application of softsensors has been recently increas-
ing in many elds including prediction of pollutants
from dierent combustion operations. By the middle
of 1997, hundreds of applications of softsensors had
been reported in the process industries alone, Keeler
and Ferguson
20
and Martin.
21
For example, softsen-
sors were successfully applied by Martin
21
to infer
kerosene ash point, distillate ash point, and other
important parameters in a renery crude tower. It has
been applied as well to estimate the bottom compos-
ition in distillation columns.
22
Application of ANN
for emission monitoring has been recently proposed
as well. Traver et al.
23
demonstrated successful appli-
cation of ANN to predict emission of a 300 HP Diesel
Engine. A multi-layer feedforward ANN of 10
inputs, 42 hidden neurons, and 3 outputs was devel-
oped to predict NO
x
, CO, and opacity. Elshafei
et al.
24
developed an inferential softsensor for emis-
sion monitoring of NO
x
and O
2
from a water-tube
boiler using polynomial function network. Data
were obtained from a simulated computational uid
dynamic model developed by Elshafei et al.,
25
Shakil
et al.,
26
who developed a dynamic NN for softsensing
of NO
x
emission from an industrial boiler. Recent
work
2729
indicates the need for models that should
consider the performance of boilers under unsteady
state applications.
Elshafei and Habib 3
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This article provides a development and an appli-
cation of ANN for prediction of steam quality in boi-
lers, instead of using nonlinear state estimation
methods. In the following section we present the
boiler model. Next, a brief introduction to ANN is
provided. Although computational uid dynamics
methods are available but they include many modeled
terms that lack validation and, therefore, lack accur-
acy. The developed ANN softsensor will then be pre-
sented in Articial NNs. The simulation results are
shown in Results and discussion and contain a thor-
ough evaluation of the proposed softsensor.
Boiler model
The boiler under consideration is of the water-tube
natural circulation type. The main components of
the boiler are the steam drum, mud drum, the down-
comer tubes, and the riser tubes, which represent the
complete water circulation loop as schematically illu-
strated by Figure 1. The subcooled feedwater into the
steam drum ows in the downcomers where it is
heated by absorbing sensible energy from hot gases
in the return chamber. The saturated steam from the
mud drum, then, is heated and partially evaporated in
the riser tubes before entering the steam drum.
In Figure 1, Q
:
MW is the heat applied on the riser
tubes, which boils the water in the drum. The applied
heat causes saturated steam to rise in riser-drum-
downcomer loop. Feedwater, _ m
fw
kg=s, is the ow
rate of water being supplied to the boiler. Saturated
steam, _ m
s
kg=s, is the ow rate of the steam which is
taken from the drum to the superheaters and the tur-
bine. A full simulation model was built for the boiler
and tuned to match the collected operating measure-
ments including the three element control of the
boiler. The simulation model is built using the
Astrom and Bell
4
model. The set of nonlinear dier-
ential equations representing the time dependence of
the state variables can be presented in a matrix form
as follows
a
11
a
12
0 0
a
21
a
22
0 0
a
31
0 a
33
0
a
41
0 a
43
a
44
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
dP=dt
dV
wt
=dt
d
r
=dt
dV
sd
=dt
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
5

_ m
fw
_ m
s
Q _ m
fw
h
fw
_ m
s
h
s
Q
r
h
s
_ m
dc

s
T
d
V
0
sd
V
sd

h
fw
h
w
h
s
_ m
fw
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
1
The model derived parameters are given by
a
12

w

s
2
a
11
V
wt
@
w
@p
V
st
@
s
@p
3
a
22

w
h
w

s
h
s
4
a
21
V
wt
h
w
@
w
@p

w
@h
w
@p

V
st
h
s
@
s
@p

s
@h
s
@p

V
t
m
t
C
p
@t
s
@p
5
a
31

w
@h
w
@p

r
h
c
@
w
@p

1
v
V
r
1
r
h
c
@
s
@p

s
@h
s
@p

v
V
r

r
h
c
V
r
@
v
@p
V
r
m
r
C
p
@t
s
@p
6
a
33
1
r

w
h
c
V
r
@
v
@
r
7
a
41
V
sd
@
s
@p

1
h
c

s
V
sd
@h
@p

w
V
wd
@h
w
@p
V
sd
V
wd
m
d
C
p
@t
s
@p

r
1V
r

v
@
s
p
1
v

@
w
@p

s

@
v
@p

8
e
43

r
1
s

w
V
r
@
v
@
r
9
Figure 1. Schematic picture of the boiler.
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e
44

s
10
q
2
dc

2
w
A
dc

s
g
v
V
r
k
11

v


w

s
1

s

r
ln 1

r

12
The model is highly nonlinear, and the available state-
dependant measurements are basically the drum level
and the drum pressure. With only these two process
variable outputs, the application of conventional state
estimation can be very dicult and computationally
expensive for online estimation. Although the drum
temperature is also available, it is directly related to
the drum pressure.
Artificial NNs
ANNs are composed of signal processing elements
called neurons. The neurons are interconnected and
the strength of the interconnections is denoted by
parameters called synaptic weights. The model of a
neuron is as shown in Figure 2, where x
1
, x
2
, . . . , x
p
are the input signals, w
k1
, w
k2
, . . . , w
kp
the synaptic
weights of neuron k, w
k0
the bias, v
k
the linear com-
biner output, f(.) an activation function, and y
k
the
output signal of the neuron.
In mathematical terms, the kth neuron is
described as
30
v
k

X
p
j1
w
kj
x
j
w
k0
y
k
f v
k

13
The activation function, f(.), denes the output of a
neuron in terms of the activity level at its input.
There are several classes of ANNs structures. The
most common structure of ANN is known as feedfor-
ward neural networks (FFNNs). FFNNs are com-
posed of layers of interconnected neurons. Usually,
an input layer, a number of hidden layers, and an
output layer are used, as shown in Figure 3.
30
input
layer is essentially a direct link to the inputs of the rst
w
k0
w
k1
w
k2
w
kp
f (.)
V
k
y
k
x
1
x
2
x
p
1
Biase
Summing
Junction
Activation
function
Synaptic
weights
Neuron
Figure 2. Model of a neuron.
S
S
S
f
f
f
S
S
S
f
f
f
S
S
S
f
f
f
y
1
y
2
y
3
u
1
u
2
Input
Layer
First Hidden
Layer
Second Hidden
Layer
Output
Layer
Figure 3. Multi-layer FFNN.
FFNN: feedforward neural network.
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hidden layer. The output of each neuron may be con-
nected to the inputs of all the neurons in the next
layer. Signals are unidirectional, i.e. they ow only
from input to output.
The potential of FFNN as a basis for the modeling,
classication, and statistical estimation stems from
the following characteristics. Each neuron (processing
unit) has a nonlinear activation function that enables
the modeling of any underlying nonlinearity or com-
plex relations in physical processes. Due to the feed-
forward structure, the training of the network is
simple and can be made to adapt to varying condi-
tions. In a multi-layer NN, each neuron in a particular
layer is connected to a large number of source neurons
in the previous layer. This form of global interconnec-
tivity has the potential to be fault-tolerant. If a neuron
or its synaptic links are damaged, the quality of pre-
dicting the output behavior will not be seriously
degraded. For a sucient number of hidden units,
FFNNs can approximate any continuous static
inputoutput mapping to any desired degree of
approximation.
30,31
The back propagation (BP) algo-
rithm is usually used for (FFNN) training. The most
popular version of BP algorithms is Levenberg
Marquardt (LM).
32
The LM algorithm outperforms
simple gradient descent and other conjugate gradient
methods in a wide variety of problems. LM has
become very popular due to its relative ease of imple-
mentation and its ability to converge promptly from a
wide range of initial guesses.
Results and discussion
Boiler dynamic results
The industrial boiler used in the present investigation
has the data and operating conditions, as presented in
Table 1. These data are at the maximum continuous
rating (MCR). The boiler (Figure 1) was connected
with other boilers to a common steam header along
with the steam coming from the cogeneration unit.
Due to an upset in the gas turbine steam cogeneration
unit, the header pressure dropped. The boiler control
system reacts to meet the demand in steam, as
reected in the plot of Figure 4(a) which presents
the time variations in the steam ow rate of the
boiler. The increase in the steam load causes pressure
drop in the boiler drum and increase in the feedwater,
which results in decrease in the delivery of steam,
causing the exhibited oscillatory response.
The boiler model and the parameters of the control
system were tted to data obtained from an actual
boiler of 208 MW at MCR.
33
The model was vali-
dated by comparing the response of the model and
the actual boiler during normal operation and
during a short upset period shown in Figure 4. The
top plot (Figure 4(a)) presents the actual steam load
during the upset period, while the following plots
show the actual boiler response versus the tted
model response. The results of the feedwater ow
rate (Figure 4(b)) and the heating power (Figure
4(c)) show that the model provides good agreement
with the actual boiler. The dierence between the
actual heating power and simulated power in the
steady-state region is due to the heat absorbed in
the economizer, the energy loss in the water blow-
down, and radiation.
Simulation results
The simulation model described in Articial NNs is
used to assess the performance of the boiler under
various operating conditions. In particular, the
model is used to generate operating conditions for
building a simplied NN based softsensor for estimat-
ing the riser tube steam quality. The inputs for the
NN are presented in Table 2. The normal boiler
operating conditions considered in the present simu-
lation are _ m
s
45 kg/s, steam power 92 MW,
pressure 4990 kPa, V
sd
4.14 m
3
, and
V
wt
57.73 m
3
. The steam load proles for training
and testing of the NN are shown in Figure 5 and
cover a wide range of operations and rate of change.
Several NN structures were tested with various
numbers of neurons in the hidden layer, as presented
in Table 3. The number of neurons was taken to be 10,
15, and 20. All cases were tested using 100 epochs. All
NNs have tansig functions in the hidden layer and
logsig function in the output layer. The performance
of the tested NNs is summarized also in Table 3. Table
3 clearly shows that networks 2 and 3 gave the best
performance on the test data. However, network 3
was selected because it has less number of weights.
The performance of this network, based on the test
data, is shown in Figure 6 and indicates close agree-
ment between the simulated and predicted results for
the steam volume fraction. The correlation coecient
is better than 0.998. The corresponding simulated and
predicted results of the steam mass quality and the
water ow rate in the downcomers are shown in
Figure 7. Agreement between simulated and predicted
results of these two parameters is indicated.
Table 1. Boiler data and typical operating conditions.
Maximum continuous steam power (MCR) 208 MW
Drum saturation pressure 4996.6 kPa
Drum saturation temperature 263.9

C
Header super steam pressure 4490 kPa
Super heater temperature 411

C
Energy loss to stack 18.5%
Energy absorption in superheater 12.7%
Energy absorption in economizer 7.8%
Natural gas fuel LHV 39.8 MJ/kg
The energy absorbed by the system
of the risers, downcomers, and drum
61%
MCR: maximum continuous rating.
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Two more NNs were built to estimate the risers
mass steam quality, and the downcomers water ow
rate. Both NNs have the same structure; 5 inputs, 1
hidden layer of 10 neurons, and 1 output. The per-
formance of the two NNs is shown in Figure 8. The
NN for estimating the steam mass quality achieved a
maximum absolute error of 1.46% and root mean
squared error (RMSE) of 0.59% on the testing data.
On the other hand, the NN for estimating the down-
comer water ow rate achieves 1.16% maximum
absolute error, and RMSE of 0.51%.
As the steam demand increases, the pressure in the
steam drum drops below the corresponding saturation
temperature. As a result, steam evaporation increases,
causing high steam quality, as shown by the solid line
in Figure 6. The simulated volume steam fraction is
re-plotted in Figure 8 for the average of all the 560
riser tubes. Another plot is shown also in Figure 8
presenting the steam volume fraction for the case of
the highest heat ux. According to study in Saudi
ARAMCO,
33
the heat ux is not the same for all
tubes. The ux intensity can vary over a ratio of 2.5
for tubes closer to the ame as compared to tubes
away from the ame. As such, the tubes closer to
the ame can have a ux intensity double the average
heat ux over all tubes. Since the steam quality is
directly proportional to the heat ux intensity, the
steam quality is of at least 40% more. In the tubes
closer to the ame front or subjected to direct
0 20 40 60 80 100
45
50
55
60
65
70
75 (a)
(b)
(c)
Steam flow rate
Time in minutes
Steam flow rate during load upset
Actual and simulated (dotted) feed
water flow rate
Firing power (actual) versus the
simulated heating power
S
t
e
a
m

f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

i
n

k
g
/
s
e
c
0 20 40 60 80 100
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
70
75
80
Feed water flow rate, red=actual, blue=simulation
F
e
e
d

w
a
t
e
r

r
a
t
e

i
n

k
g
/
s
e
c
Time in Minutes
0 20 40 60 80 100
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
Input Power, red=actual, blue=simulation
P
o
w
e
r

i
n

M
W
Time in minutes
Figure 4. Validation of the simulation model against the boiler measurements (solid line, actual; dotted line, simulation).
Table 2. Operating range of the NN inputs.
Variables
Range of
variables
1 Riser/downcomer heat Q(t) and
Q(t 1) (kJ/s)
0200 MW
2 Steam flow rate m
s
(t) and m
s
(t 1) (kg/s) 090 kg/s
3 Pressure P(t) and P(t 1) (kPa) 40006500 kPa
4 Drum level L(t) and L(t 1) (m) 5575 cm
5 Feedwater rate m
fw
(t) and m
fw
(t 1) (kg/s) 0110 kg/s
NN: neural network.
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0 10 20 30 40
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55 (a) (b)
Time in minutes
S
t
e
a
m

v
o
l
u
m
e

q
u
a
l
i
t
y
Prediction of steam volume ratio
Predicted
Simulated
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
Targets
N
N

o
u
t
p
u
t
Testing Performance of the Neural Network
Figure 6. (a) Steam volume quality; blue (dotted line): simulated; red (solid line): predicted and (b) predicted versus simulated values.
(b) (a)
Steam load for testing
0 20 40 60 80 100
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
S
t
e
a
m

D
e
m
a
n
d

i
n

k
g
/
s
e
c
Time (minutes)
Steam load for training the ANN
0 10 20 30 40
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Time in minutes
S
t
e
a
m

f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

i
n

k
g
/
s
e
c
Figure 5. Steam flow rate for training (a) and testing (b) of the NN.
NN: neural network.
Table 3. Summary of the NNs performance.
Number of neurons
in the hidden layer Training MSE (10
6
) Testing MSE (10
4
)
Maximum absolute
error (testing)
1 5101 4.6062 31 0.1414
2 10101 4.27 0.3766 0.0207
3 5151 4.0132 0.4324 0.0155
4 10151 3.7889 355 0.6424
5 5201 2.4283 683 0.7501
6 10201 3.7 11 0.2018
NNs: neural networks; MSE: mean squared error.
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impingement of high temperature gases. A volume
steam quality of 78% is considered critical to avoid
thermal stress. Figure 8 can be used as a guide for the
operator to insure safe operation of the boiler. The
dotted line of Figure 8 indicates the predicted condi-
tion of the steam volume fraction of the tubes having
the highest heat ux intensity. The horizontal line rep-
resents a critical level that should be avoided to pre-
vent thermal stresses in the riser pipes, and possible
damage of pipes. The gure indicates that the highest
steam quality occurs between 20 and 27 min and cor-
responds to that of the steam ow rate of Figure 5(b).
In this region, the predicted steam volume quality
exhibits the worst situation where it gets closer to
the maximum value of 78%. Although other alterna-
tive NNs could also be considered for estimating
steam quality, e.g. support vector machines, radial
basis functions, and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference
system, the basic FFNN used in this study was su-
cient to prove the concept and provided satisfactory
results at low complexity. Future study may investi-
gate the use of other NNs and compare them from
computational cost, generalization capability, and
eectiveness in steam quality softsensing.
0 10 20 30 40
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Time in minutes
P
r
e
d
i
c
t
e
d

S
t
e
a
m

v
o
l
u
m
e

q
u
a
l
i
t
y
Critical limit of Steam volume quality
Average heat flux
Highest heat flux
Unsafe Limit
Figure 8. Critical steam volume fractions.
0 10 20 30 40
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035 (a)
(b)
Time in minutes
S
t
e
a
m

M
a
s
s

Q
u
a
l
i
t
y
Prediction of steam mass ratio
Predicted
Simulated
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
2000
2200
2400
2600
2800
3000
3200
3400
Time in minutes
W
a
t
e
r

F
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

q
d
c

(
m
3
/
s
e
c
)
Down Comer water flow rate qdc
Predicted
Simulated
Figure 7. (a) Prediction of steam mass quality and (b) prediction of the downcomer flow rate.
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Conclusions
The article proposed an ANN softsensor for estimat-
ing the riser tubes steam quality. The model was vali-
dated with the results of a nonlinear dynamic model.
ANNs are easy to use for online monitoring of boiler
performance instead of using a full nonlinear model.
NNs are also used to estimate the water circulation in
the boiler instead of using nonlinear state estimator.
The critical regions of possible tube overheating were
reasonably predicted by the present model. The avail-
ability of predicted steam quality improves boiler
operation and safety, and reduces boilers downtime
and maintenance cost.
Funding
The authors acknowledge the support provided by King
Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology through the
Science and Technology Unit at King Fahd University of
Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) for funding this study
through project NSTIP# 04-ENV59-08, as part of the
National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan. They
also thank KFUPM for its support of this study.
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Appendix
Notation
A steam quality
C
p
specific heat of metal
h
fg
specific condensation enthalpy
h
fg
h
g
h
f
h
fw
specific enthalpy of feedwater
h
s
specific enthalpy of steam leaving the
boiler
h
w
specific enthalpy of saturated water
H
w
specific enthalpy of saturated liquid
water
L
s
level variation caused by the steam in
the drum
L
w
level variations caused by changes of
the amount of water in the drum
_ m
cd
the condensation flow in the drum
_ m
dc
the downcomer mass flow rate
_ m
fw
mass flow rate of feedwater supplied to
the drum
_ m
r
the flow rate out of the risers
_ m
s
mass flow rate of steam exiting the
boiler
_ m
sd
steam flow rate through the liquid sur-
face in the drum
P drum pressure (kPa)
Q
:
heat flow rate to the risers
V
d
drum volume
V
dc
downcomer volume
V
r
volume of riser tubes
V
sd
volume of steam under the liquid level
in the drum
V
0
sd
the volume of steam in the drum in the
hypothetical situation when there is no
condensation of steam in the drum
V
st
total volume of steam in the system
V
t
the total volume of the drum, downco-
mer, and risers; V
t
V
st
V
wt
V
wd
volume of water under the liquid level
V
wt
total volume of water in the system
average volume fraction of steam in the
riser

v
steam volume fraction in the riser tubes
exit

g
density of saturated steam

s
saturated steam density

w
saturated water density
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