METHOD OF CONTROLLING INVERTER FOR BLOWER OF INDUSTRIAL BOILER BASED ON IOT AND INDUSTRIAL BOILER USING THE SAME

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to and the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 10-2024-0166250, filed on November 20, 2024, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a method of controlling an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on the Internet of Things (IoT) and an industrial boiler using the same, and more specifically, to a method of controlling an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on the IoT, which allows a boiler to effectively operate by controlling the inverter for a blower on the basis of big data generated using industrial boiler data collected through real-time monitoring technology based on the IoT technology, and an industrial boiler using the same.

2. Discussion of Related Art

Generally, industrial boilers are major energy sources in the industrial sector, the high efficiency of industrial boilers leads to reduced process costs so that continuous technological development and optimization are taking place, and there are no heat source devices to completely replace the industrial boilers, and thus such technological development is expected to continue to grow.

Meanwhile, the industrial boiler is the largest energy-consuming device, and there is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases and create energy-saving effects through improved efficiency.

In order to achieve these greenhouse gas reduction and energy saving effects, an air-fuel ratio, which is a mass ratio of air to solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel, should be managed at an optimal level during the combustion process of industrial boilers.

Therefore, the most boilers are equipped with an air-fuel ratio control device to ensure that a burner’s combustion efficiency is maintained at an optimal level.

That is, the air-fuel ratio control device adjusts the amounts of air and fuel supplied to the boiler by attaching a valve or damper to an air supply device (blower) and a fuel supply device (gas pipe).

When the combustion condition of the boiler is poor, the air-fuel ratio of the boiler is controlled by an expert who holds a required certification for boiler adjustment and is called in using at an additional cost.

However, the boiler operator should have an expensive device such as a combustion gas analyzer or the like, which causes an economic burden, and as a result, it is often difficult to conduct accurate analysis because the operator relies on experience without a combustion gas analyzer. Furthermore, since each boiler manufacturer has an in-house control system, it was difficult for the boiler operators in the field to directly handle an air-fuel ratio control device.

Therefore, there is a problem that it is difficult to precisely control the air-fuel ratio, and when the air-fuel ratio is not precisely controlled due to the problem, the combustion condition becomes poor, energy consumption is excessive, and the generation of air pollutants increases, which causes a great harm to users of the corresponding industrial boiler, and thus there is an urgent necessity to develop a technology that can precisely control the air-fuel ratio of boilers.

Meanwhile, the applicants of the present invention have applied for a plurality of boiler-related patents through continuous research and development on industrial boilers, and the present invention was derived as a result of such continuous research and development.

[Related Art Documents]

[Patent Documents]

(Patent Document 0001) Korean Patent Registration No. 10-2337850

(Patent Document 0002) Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1460775

(Patent Document 00030 Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1887657

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to providing a method of controlling an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on the Internet of Things (IoT), which allows a boiler to effectively operate by controlling the inverter for a blower on the basis of big data generated using industrial boiler data collected through real-time monitoring technology based on the IoT technology, and an industrial boiler using the same.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on IoT, which includes a boiler drive unit (200) configured to control operations of a plurality of devices including an inverter for a blower provided in a boiler, a data collection unit (300) that is provided in the boiler and collects various types of data related to boiler operation, a boiler control unit (400) configured to output various types of operation status information related to the boiler operation so that a user checks the output operation status information, allow adjustment data for boiler operation control to be input, and output an operation control signal to the boiler drive unit (200) on the basis of input or transmitted data, and a server (500) including an internal memory, a communication module, an input unit, and a display unit and configured to receive the data collected from the data collection unit (300), calculate and learn efficiency of the boiler, and transmit boiler operation efficiency data for each piece of data for boiler operation to the boiler control unit (400).

According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of controlling an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on IoT, which includes collecting, by the data collection unit, data including control data, operation data, alarm history, a water supply amount, a gas amount, and a power amount from an operating boiler and transmitting the collected data to the boiler control unit through a boiler IoT device, and transmitting, by the boiler control unit, corresponding data to the server, transmitting, by the boiler control unit, automatic air-fuel ratio change request data to the server upon receiving a request for automatic change of a boiler air-fuel ratio through the input unit, and calculating, by the server, efficiency of the boiler on the basis of input data and then determining whether the efficiency increases upon reducing or increasing an air volume on the basis of accumulated data according to a calculation value of the efficiency of the boiler, when an increase in efficiency is determined when the air volume changes, determining, by the server, whether a value of an inverter for a blower is changeable, and when it is determined that a change in the value of the inverter for a blower is allowed, deriving a value of the inverter for a blower for optimal operating, and transmitting the derived value of the inverter for a blower to the boiler control unit, correcting, by the boiler control unit, an air-fuel ratio setting value using the received value of the inverter for a blower, and operating, by the boiler control unit, the industrial boiler according to the changed air-fuel ratio setting value.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art by describing exemplary embodiments thereof in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of inverter control for a blower of an industrial boiler based on the Internet of Things (IoT) according to the present invention;

FIGS. 2 and 3 are views illustrating configurations of an industrial boiler according to the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a view showing an embodiment of a control window of a display unit according to the present invention; and

FIG. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a method of controlling an inverter for a blower of an industrial boiler based on the IoT according to the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

In order to describe the present invention, operational advantages of the present invention, and the objectives accomplished by the implementation of the present invention, exemplary embodiments of the present invention are exemplified and will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

First, the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting to the present invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a” and “an” are intended to also include the plural forms, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. Further, it should be further understood that the terms “comprise,” “comprising,” “include,” and/or “including,” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, components, parts, and/or combinations thereof, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, components, parts, and/or combinations thereof.

In the description of the present invention, when it is determined that detailed descriptions of related well-known configurations or functions unnecessarily obscure the gist of the present invention, the detailed descriptions thereof will be omitted.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, an industrial boiler according to the present invention includes a boiler drive unit 200 that controls operations of a plurality of devices including an inverter for a blower provided in a boiler, a data collection unit 300 that is provided in the boiler and collects various types of data related to boiler operation, a boiler control unit 400 that outputs various types of operation status information related to the boiler operation so that a user can check the output operation status information, allow adjustment data for boiler operation control to be input, and outputs an operation control signal to the boiler drive unit 200 on the basis of input or transmitted data, and a server 500 that receives the data collected from the data collection unit 300, calculates and learns the efficiency of the boiler, and transmits boiler operation efficiency data for each piece of data for boiler operation to the boiler control unit 400.

Examples of the boiler drive unit 200 include various types of devices constituting a boiler, such as an inverter for a blower for controlling the operation of the blower, an inverter for operating a water supply pump, a gas damper, an air damper, etc.

In particular, as illustrated in FIGS. 2 and 3, the inverter for a blower is provided on one side of a boiler main body 10 to adjust a driving speed of a blower 80 that supplies combustion air to a burner 20, and uses the combustion air supplied through the blower 80 to adjust the combustion temperature and combustion efficiency of the boiler.

That is, a supplied amount and supplied direction of the air supplied through the blower 80 are controlled using a damper 70, and specifically, the damper 70 is connected to the blower 80 through a duct 81.

Meanwhile, a total volume of the air supplied to the damper 70 may be controlled by controlling the number of rotations of the blower 80 through an inverter provided in the blower 80.

Therefore, the air supplied through the blower 80 may be combustion air that is directly introduced into the burner 20 or heat-exchanged with the heated combustion air at an appropriate temperature through a heat exchanger 30 installed in an exhaust path of the combustion air, and in this case, the heat-exchanged air may be combustion air supplied to the burner 20.

In addition, the data collection unit 300 is provided in various types of devices constituting the boiler to collect the data related to boiler operation and includes, for example, a sensor that detects an output of an inverter for a blower, an output of a pump inverter, an output of a gas damper, an output of an air damper, a water level, an O₂ concentration in exhaust gas, a NO_x emission amount, a water level, a temperature, a water supply amount, a steam amount, a gas amount, a power amount, etc., and the data collection unit 300 collects various types of data that are related to boiler operation and include various types of detection data output from the sensor, alarm history, control data, operation data, etc., and automatically transmits the data to the control unit 400 or the server 500 using an Internet of Things (IoT) device.

In addition, the control unit 400 includes an internal memory, a communication module, an input unit, and a display unit, and the input unit and the display unit may use a touch panel.

Various types of menus for operating an industrial boiler are output on the touch panel, and the user manipulates the menus to check various types of information, that is, data, required for operating the boiler or to operate the boiler.

For example, as shown in FIG. 4, in the touch panel, menus such as “Main Screen,” “Operation Status,” “Operation Settings,” “Monitoring,” “Manual Manipulation,” “Alarm Screen,” “Reset,” “Fuel Efficiency Adjustment,” “Auto Combustion,” and “Blower,” etc. are provided, information is checked on the screen output according to the selection of the corresponding menu or a boiler control command is input, and in this case, the control unit 400 controls the boiler based on programmable logic control (PLC).

Meanwhile, for output values of various types of menus output on the touch panel of the control unit 400, a boiler manufacturer’s expert sets an air-fuel ratio by inputting each detection value for each load (combustion range) during a test run for management of the efficiency of the boiler.

A value of an inverter for a blower, a value of an inverter (pump inverter), a value of a gas damper, a value of an air damper, a recirculation value, an external air value, and an auto moving value are input for each combustion range as input values for setting the air-fuel ratio above, and the air-fuel ratio is set.

In this case, the recirculation value and the external air value are input according to whether exhaust gas is recirculated, and the auto moving value is generally not used.

Meanwhile, in the present invention, the value of the inverter for a blower may be manually input, and the data collected from the data collection unit 300 may be automatically input.

In addition, the control unit 400 serves to transmit the collected and stored boiler information to the server 500 through the communication module.

The server 500 may be provided by the manufacturer or management company of the industrial boiler 10 and serve to receive boiler information transmitted from the control unit 400 in communication with the control unit 400 and store the received boiler information in a database.

Further, the server 500 analyzes, processes, and learns the data transmitted from the control unit 400 based on artificial intelligence, generates a boiler drive unit control signal on the basis of the analyzed, processed, and learned data, and transmits the generated boiler drive unit control signal to the control unit 400.

In this case, in the present invention, the server 500 calculates the value of the inverter for a blower based on artificial intelligence and transmits the calculated value to the control unit 400, and the control unit 400 records and outputs the corresponding data.

A method of controlling the inverter for a blower of the industrial boiler based on the IoT according to the present invention configured as described above will be described with reference to FIG. 5.

First, the data collection unit collects various types of data (control data, operation data, alarm history, a water supply amount, a gas amount, a power amount, etc.) from an operating boiler and transmits the collected data to a memory of the control unit through a boiler IoT device, and the control unit transmits the corresponding data to the server.

In the above data collection process, the data collection unit may intermittently collect and transmit the data at a predetermined time interval or may measure and transmit the data only when specific conditions such as an air-fuel ratio and the like change, but for more accurate measurement, the data collection unit measures the data at regular time intervals.

In addition, when the control unit receives a (manual or automatic) request for change of the air-fuel ratio of the boiler through the input unit, in the case of the request for change of the air-fuel ratio of the boiler is a manual request, the operator directly inputs a number on a number panel or changes the value of the inverter for a blower or the like by pushing UP and DOWN buttons and stores the changed value.

Further, in the case of the request for change of the air-fuel ratio of the boiler is an automatic request, the control unit transmits automatic air-fuel ratio change request data to the server, and the server calculates the efficiency of the boiler using an efficiency calculation program based on the existing stored boiler data and information from an additionally installed flow meter - a water supply amount, a gas amount, a steam flow rate, etc.

As a result of calculating the efficiency of the boiler, the server determines whether the efficiency increases upon changing (reducing or increasing) an air volume on the basis of accumulated data.

Thereafter, when an increase in efficiency is determined when the air volume changes (reduction or increase), the server determines whether the value of the inverter for a blower can be changed, when it is determined that the value of the inverter for a blower can be changed, the server derives a value of the inverter for a blower for optimal operating (a numeric value ± from the current value), and the derived value of the inverter for a blower is transmitted from the server to the control unit, and the control unit receives the value and changes the value of the inverter for a blower displayed on the display unit of the control unit through PLC control.

Thereafter, the control unit operates the boiler with the changed value of the inverter value for a blower, i.e., the changed air-fuel ratio setting value.

As described above, the control of the inverter for a blower enables precise control for each load in each of the 10 operations of load of the boiler and thus is effective in achieving optimal operation of the boiler.

In this way, in the present invention, dampers are each connected to a blower and a gas supply pipe to adjust amounts of air and gas, respectively, and an inverter for the blower is installed to adjust the number of rotations of a blower motor so as to more precisely control the amount of air blown.

Here, the value of the inverter for a blower is derived as an optimal value through analysis based on artificial intelligence, and this value is automatically changed and set in the display unit of the control unit, and the boiler is controlled according to this value to continuously maintain optimal efficiency.

That is, controllable variables to improve the efficiency of the boiler relate to a load (combustion range%), an output of an inverter for a blower, an output of a pump inverter, an output of a gas damper, an output of an air damper, etc., and when big data is generated using the above data and correlations therebetween are analyzed, the output of the inverter for a blower generally has a positive correlation (0.45) with efficiency on the basis of the “efficiency” index, and the positive correlation indicates that the boiler and the output of the inverter for a blower tend are closely related.

Therefore, according to the present invention, the boiler operator may not only immediately change settings of a boiler air-fuel ratio window to suit the optimal efficiency when he or she desires but may also automatically set the air-fuel ratio during setting.

That is, optimal combustion, improved blower energy consumption efficiency, and combustion temperature control are possible through the air control of the inverter for a blower.

That is, an accurate air-to-fuel ratio is required for efficient combustion, when there is too little air (insufficient ventilation), incomplete combustion occurs, resulting in energy loss, when there is too much air (over-ventilation), the combustion process cools down, reducing efficiency, and thus adjusting the blower output ensures that the correct amount of air is supplied, resulting in optimal combustion.

In addition, since the blower itself consumes energy, the blower may hinder efficiency improvement when the blower operates excessively or inefficiently, whereas when blower output is optimized, energy consumption can be minimized while an effective air supply ensuring.

In addition, adequate air supply affects the temperature and consistency of the combustion process, and thus the overall thermal efficiency of the boiler can be improved through consistent and optimal combustion.

According to the present invention configured as described above, anyone can accurately control an air-fuel ratio of an industrial boiler even without an additional cost, time, and skilled expert, thereby maximizing the efficiency of the boiler.

In addition, since the efficiency of the boiler is maximized as described above, environmental pollutants can be minimized, energy efficiency can be improved, and maintenance costs for industrial boilers can be minimized.

Further, since accurate combustion control can be performed, precise temperature control of industrial boilers can be performed, and thus productivity can be improved and the quality of products produced can be improved.