0D Dynamic Modeling and Experimental Characterization of a Biomass Boiler with Mass and Energy Balance

Abstract

The paper presents an experimental study and a 0D dynamic modeling of a biomass boiler based on the Bond Graph formalism from mass and energy balance. The biomass boiler investigated in this study is an automatic pellet boiler with a nominal power of 30 kW with a fixed bed. The balances allow to model as time function the flue gas enthalpy flux variation and the thermal transfers between the flue gas and the walls of the boiler subsystems. The main objective is to build a model to represent the dynamic thermal behavior of the boiler. Indeed, small domestic boilers have discontinuous operating phases when the set temperature is reached. The global thermal transfer coefficients for the boiler subsystems are obtained according to an iterative calculation by inverse method. The boiler has an average efficiency of 67.5% under our operating conditions and the radiation is the dominant thermal transfer by reaching 97.6% of the total thermal transfers inside the combustion chamber. The understanding of the dynamic behavior of the boiler during the operating phases allows to evaluate its energy performances. The proposed model is both stimulated and validated using experimental results carried out on the boiler.

Keywords

• energy balance
• biomass boiler
• heat exchanger
• 0D modeling
• Bond Graph
• global thermal transfers