2013 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics & Applications (ISIEA2013), September 22-25, 2013, Kuching, Malaysia

Design and Development of an ARM platform based

Embedded System for Measurement of Boiler Efficiency
*Chayalakshmi .C.L, **D.S. Jangamshetti

Savita Sonoli

*Dept. of Instrumentation Technology,

** Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
Basaveshwar Engineering College,
Bagalkot, Karnataka, India.
*chayalakshmi.cl@gmail.com, **dsj1869@rediffmail.com

Dept. of Electronics and Communication,

RYM College of Engineering ,
Bellary, Karnataka, India.
savitachitriki@gmail.com

repair of a boiler. The steam system collects and controls the

steam produced in the boiler. Steam is directed through a
piping system to the point of use. Throughout the system,
steam pressure is regulated using valves and checked with
steam pressure gauges. The fuel system includes all equipment
used to provide fuel to generate the necessary heat. The
equipment required in the fuel system depends on the type of
fuel used in the system. Conventional system of finding boiler
efficiency is more prone to errors; because of the involvement
of an operator in collecting data and processing it using
complicated mathematical equations. The following are the
steps to calculate the efficiency by the human operator:
The operator has to note parameters like temperature
of feed water, steam pressure.
Then the operator has to use steam table to get the
enthalpy of feed water, specific enthalpy of water and
specific enthalpy of evaporation, which are required
to calculate the enthalpy of steam.
Then all the values are to be substituted in the
equation for finding boiler efficiency.

Abstract Boiler is an integral component of any process

industry. The boiler efficiency probably degrades due to bad
operation and lack of maintenance. So, performance analysis of
the boiler has to be carried out regularly. Performance of a boiler
is measured in terms of efficiency. Efficiency is one of the
important parameters of a boiler, which gives information about
its operating condition, heat generation from it and heat loss.
Real time monitoring of efficiency helps an operator to know the
boiler efficiency continuously. Real time measurement of
efficiency would help in evaluating the performance of the boiler,
which is necessary for taking energy conservation action in
industry. This paper presents design and development of an
embedded system, based on Advanced Reduced Instruction Set
Computing Machine (ARM) platform to monitor the efficiency
using input-output method. The developed system is tested using
the technical data of a thermal power station.

Key Words Performance analysis, Boiler Efficiency, InputOutput method, ARM.

I. INTRODUCTION
Boiler plays a very important role in any process industry.
It is a device which converts water to steam, as water is
cheaper than any other liquid that can be used for transferring
the heat to a process. For conversion it uses heat which is
generated due to combustion. Boilers can generate steam with
various pressure and temperatures, depending upon the fuel
used and the type of equipment. Usually the fuel used for
combustion is coal, natural gas, oil etc. The volume of steam
is higher and the force produced is almost same as the force
exerted by gun powder. So, boilers are to be treated with care
as it is a dangerous device [1]. Pressurized steam can be used
to produce work in many applications such as expanding and
retracting a piston, to expand gasses in a cylinder or
environmental heating. In many process industries steam or
super heated steam is considered as an energy source. Usually
the energy efficiency is the major performance analyzing
parameter for the boilers. The schematic diagram of an
industrial boiler is as shown in Fig. 1.
The heat generated can be transferred to the process in any
of the three methods like conduction, convection or radiation
[2]. The boiler system comprises of feed water system, steam
system and fuel system. The feed water system provides water
to the boiler and regulates it automatically to meet the steam
demand. Various valves provide access for maintenance and

978-1-4799-1125-7/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

The manual effort to calculate the boiler efficiency is

nullified by the system. With this system, an operator is able
to know the boiler efficiency more accurately, as the system
collects the data from the sensors. Processing is done in
ARM7 processor which works at a very high frequency in
several megahertz. ARM7 processor is considered as a system
on chip and is suitable for industrial process control
applications. ARM7 is the best choice due to its high
performance, low power consumption, low cost and small size
[3].
II. BOILER EFFICIENCY
A. Need for Monitoring Boiler Efficiency
Boiler is the major component in generating electricity in
India [4] [5]. Efficient boiler operation has always been
critical in power plant. Determination of efficiency on regular
basis helps to find variation of boiler efficiency from its best
value. Hence, the performance of the boiler has to be carried
out regularly to know more about the healthy condition of a
boiler, which is pre requisite for energy conservation action in
industry. Lower performance results in an increase in the cost
of production [6]. Performance is decided based on the

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2013 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics & Applications (ISIEA2013), September 22-25, 2013, Kuching, Malaysia

efficiency. Performance of a boiler degrades over the time

because of aging, resulting in higher heat rate, CO2 emissions
and operating costs with lower reliability and in some cases
reduced output. After few years of neglect, it may reach the
point where significant investment is required to rehabilitate
the boiler plant and bring it as close as possible to the design
performance.
In general, majority of the plants were designed at a time
when the plants production was the critical operating
parameter. Now a day, the operation of the boilers is based on
the use of certain variables, derived from the suppliers or from
the accumulated experience of the operators, which may lead
to human error and time consuming.

various boiler losses like boiler loss due to dry flue gas, loss
due to hydrogen in fuel, loss due to moisture in fuel, loss due
to moisture in air, loss due to carbon monoxide, loss due to
surface radiation, un-burnt losses in fly ash, un-burnt losses in
bottom ash are to be calculated using various equations. Then
the following equation is for finding the efficiency:
Percentage Boiler Efficiency = 100 (sum of all boiler
losses). Hence, direct method is easier than indirect method.
In direct method, boiler efficiency is determined using
Eq. 1 [7].
{Q (H h)}
(1)
% Boiler Effeciency = =
100
q GCV
Where,
Q
H
h
q
GCV

= Quantity of steam generated per hour (kg/hr)

= Enthalpy of steam (kJ/kg)
= Enthalpy of feed water (kJ/kg)
= Quantity of fuel used per hour (kg/hr)
= Gross Calorific Value of the fuel (kJ/kg).

The enthalpy of feed water and steam are calculated using

Eq. 2 and Eq. 3 respectively.
Enthalpy of feed water = h (kJ/kg) = CW (tf t0)

(2)

Where,
= Specific heat of water = 4.19 kJ/kg C
CW
= Mean feed water temperature (C)
tf
= Reference temperature = 0C.
t0
Enthalpy of steam = H (kJ/kg) = hf + hfg

(3)

Where,
= Specific enthalpy of water (kJ/kg)
hf

= Dryness fraction
= Specific enthalpy of evaporation (kJ/kg).
hfg

Fig. 1: Schematic of an industrial boiler [6]

Hence, there is a necessity to introduce embedded based

system to monitor the boiler efficiency on a real time basis.
This reduces the involvement of operators intelligence,
experience and increases the effectiveness of estimation.

The following is the technical data of an Ukai Thermal

Power Station [1]. This data is used for verification of our
system. Design Data of 200 MW Boiler is given below:
Boiler type: Direct tangentially coal fired, balanced
draught, natural circulation
Designed fuel
: Coal
Mass of coal burnt (q)
: 85 T/hr
Mass of steam generated (Q)
: 600 T/hr
Coal
Fixed carbon
: 39 %
Volatile matter
: 25 %
Moisture
:8%
Ash
: 28 %
Gross Calorific Value
: 4900 kcal/kg
GCV in terms of kJ/kg
: 20501.6 kJ/kg
Mean feed water temperature
: 35 C
Pressure of steam
: 131.9 kg/cm2
Pressure of steam in terms of bar : 129.5 bar

B. Calculation of Boiler Efficiency

The boiler efficiency is calculated using the two methods:
1) Direct method or input output method and 2) Indirect
method or Heat loss method. Direct method is easier than
indirect method. In direct method, efficiency is calculated as
the ratio of heat output to heat input. Heat output is defined as
the heat absorbed by the working fluid and heat input is
defined as the chemical heat in fuel and plus the heat credit
[4]. In direct method the energy gain of the working fluid is
compared with the energy content of the boiler fuel. But, in
indirect method the efficiency is the difference between the
losses and the energy input.
For direct method, the parameters needed to find efficiency
is less and also the mathematical equation is simpler. But, if
indirect method is used for the calculation of boiler efficiency,
then many parameters are to be measured. In indirect method,

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2013 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics & Applications (ISIEA2013), September 22-25, 2013, Kuching, Malaysia

For a steam pressure of 130 bar, the specific enthalpy of water

and evaporation is obtained from the steam table [9] and are as
below:
hf = 1513.5 kJ/kg; hfg = 1130.7 kJ/kg

changes depending on the temperature to which it is exposed.

The change in resistance for every 1 C is 0.384 . Figure 3
shows the signal conditioning circuits used to acquire the
signal of an RTD. This includes Wheatstone bridge followed
by voltage follower and Instrumentation amplifier. The output
of RTD is connected to a Wheatstone bridge, which converts
change in resistance to change in voltage. The bridge is
balanced at 0 C. Hence, at 0 C the output voltage of
Instrumentation amplifier is 0 V. When the feed water
temperature is 35 C, the resistance of RTD is 113.37 . The
differential bridge output voltage is 0.155 V, as the voltage at
one end of the Wheatstone bridge is 2.5 V and at the other
end, voltage is 2.345 V. The gain of an Instrumentation
amplifier is 10. Therefore, the output voltage of an
Instrumentation amplifier is 1.55 V. The circuits are
developed in Microcap 10 simulation software. The output
voltage values are approximated to two decimal digits. The
signal conditioning hardware circuit is constructed using
precision operational amplifier OPA703. The offset voltage of
OPA703 is 160 V. The output values of hardware circuit are
verified with the simulated output. Figures 4 and 5 show the
feed water temperature measured with thermometer and the
complete experimental set up respectively. Table I shows the
theoretical and practical values of output of Instrumentation
amplifier for different feed water temperature. Output voltage
signal from Instrumentation amplifier is given to the channel 0
of inbuilt 10 bit ADC of LPC2129.

Therefore,
H = hf + hfg
H = 1531.5 + (0.85)(1130.7) = 2492.595 kJ/kg
Enthalpy of feed water = h = 4.18(35 0) = 146.3 kJ/kg
Hence, after substituting all the values in Eq. 1, the efficiency
of boiler is obtained as
% = [{600 (2492.595 146.3)} / {85(20501.6)}] 100
Boiler efficiency = % = 80.77 %
III. IMPLEMENTATION
The direct method of evaluating the boiler efficiency is
implemented by measuring the feed water temperature and the
pressure of the steam coming out from the boiler. Resistive
Thermal Device (RTD) is used to measure the temperature
and a pressure transmitter is used for the measurement of the
steam pressure. Boiler efficiency is evaluated using LPC2129
which is one of the products from NXP semiconductor and is
based on ARM7TDMI-S platform.
A. ARM7TDMI-S
An embedded ARM platform is designed and implemented
to calculate the efficiency of a boiler using direct method. An
ARM7TDMI-S, a member of ARM family of general purpose
32-bit microprocessor is suitable for this application. The
ARM family offers high performance with very low power
consumption [10]. The ARM architecture is based on the
RISC principles. The RISC instruction set and decoder
mechanism is simpler than those of CISC, giving a high
instruction throughput and an excellent real time interrupt
response. ARM uses pipelining method to increase the speed
of flow of instructions to the processor. ARM7TDMI-S
supports ARM instructions of 32 bit and Thumb instructions
of 16 bit. Thumb instruction set enhances the code density.
Some of the features of LPC2129 are as follows [11]:
16/32-bit ARM7TDMI-S microcontroller in a 64 or
144 pin package.
Four/eight channel (64/144 pin package) 10-bit A/D
converter with conversion time as low as 2.44 ms.
Two 32-bit timers (with 4 capture and 4 compare
channels), PWM unit (6 outputs), Real Time Clock
and Watchdog.

RTD PT100 as a boiler feed

water temperature sensor and
signal conditioning circuit

L
P
C
2

LC D (16 2)

1
Boiler
Steam
Pressure
transmitter as a pressure
sensor and current to voltage
converter

2
9

Fig. 2: Block diagram of the system

A pressure transmitter is used as a pressure sensor to

measure the pressure of steam coming out from the boiler. The
range of output signal from the pressure transmitter is between
4 to 20 mA. This signal is converted to voltage with current to
voltage converter. The feedback resistance used for
conversion is 150 , so that when current input is 4 mA, the
voltage output from current to voltage converter is 0.6 V and
at 20 mA the voltage is 3 V. The voltage signal is then given
to the channel 1 of internal ADC. ARM processor is operated
at 12 MHz. For every 1 sec, the data from an internal ADC is
read, so that the output data can be updated at every 1 sec.
This time interval is suitable because the temperature of feed
water and pressure of steam will not change instantaneously.

B. Block Diagram
Figure 2 shows the block diagram of the system. Resistance
Thermometer Device (RTD) is suitable for the measurement
of boiler feed water temperature. The resistance of RTD
changes with change in temperature. It is necessary to measure
the temperature of feed water to find its enthalpy. RTD PT100
is a sensor whose resistance is 100 at 0 C and 138.4 at
100 C. PT100 uses platinum as a metal, whose resistance

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2013 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics & Applications (ISIEA2013), September 22-25, 2013, Kuching, Malaysia

LPC2129 is used for calculation of enthalpy of feed water,

enthalpy of the steam and the efficiency of the boiler. Program
is developed using Keil software. Along with main program,
subroutines are implemented to generate appropriate time
delay, to initialize LCD and to send command and data to the
LCD. The simulated software is showing an output voltage of
1.55 V for the feed water temperature of 35 C. Figure 5
shows the experimental results of Instrumentation amplifier at
35 C.
Figure 6 shows the flow chart for implementation of the
system. Ports are initialized for connecting LCD and for
providing the analog input to the inbuilt ADC of LPC2129.
Then the digital code corresponding to the feed water
temperature is read through channel 0 and the digital code
corresponding to steam pressure is read through channel 1 of
ADC module. According to the steam pressure, the specific
enthalpy of water and specific enthalpy of evaporation is
obtained from the look up table. Then the enthalpy of feed
water and steam is calculated from appropriate equations.
Finally the boiler efficiency is calculated. Table II gives the
boiler efficiency values for different feed water temperatures.
It is observed from the table that, as the temperature of feed
water varies from 25 C to 45 C the efficiency varies from
79.33 % to 82.21 %. To get more efficiency, the feed water
temperature must be high. Figure 7 shows the display of boiler
efficiency value at a feed water temperature of 35 C and the
steam pressure of 130 bars in the LCD of developed system.
The practical values obtained with the developed embedded
system match with the theoretical values presented in section
II. If the specific enthalpy values are stored in the look up
table, for a particular range of steam pressure, then this system
can be used to measure the boiler efficiency in any industry.
TABLE I. INSTRUMENTATION AMPLIFIER OUTPUT FOR DIFFERENT FEED
WATER TEMPERATURE
Feed
water
temp
in C
25
30
35
40
45

RTD
resistance
in
109.6
111.5
113.4
115.3
117.2

Wheatstone Bridge
O/P in mV

Instrumentation
Amplifier O/P in V

Theoretical

Practical

Theoretical

Practical

114.5
135.9
156.9
177.6
197.9

114.1
136.2
155
176
197

1.14
1.36
1.56
1.77
1.97

1.14
1.35
1.55
1.76
1.98

Fig. 3: Signal conditioning circuit for the measurement of feed water

temperature

TABLE II. BOILER EFFICIENCY FOR VARIOUS FEED WATER

TEMPERATURES
Feed water temp in C
25
30
35
40
45

% Boiler Efficiency
79.33
80.05
80.77
81.49
82.21
Fig. 4: Thermometer reading

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2013 IEEE Symposium on Industrial Electronics & Applications (ISIEA2013), September 22-25, 2013, Kuching, Malaysia

IV. CONCLUSION
In this paper, the design and development of an embedded
system for performance evaluation of a boiler by finding the
boiler efficiency is presented. Boiler efficiency is obtained
using direct method. The direct method of obtaining efficiency
of a boiler is simpler as number of parameters measured is
less. The only requirement is to measure the heat supplied to
the boiler and heat absorbed by the water. The software is
developed using Keil version 4. The outputs obtained with the
system are verified with the earlier technical data [1]. This
real time measurement and monitoring of the boiler efficiency
helps to know continuously the operating conditions of a
boiler. The performance characteristics of a boiler can be used
to optimize its operation and also to enhance its efficiency
with reduction in fuel consumption.

Fig. 5: Experimental setup

START

Initialize ports for ADC and LCD

REFERENCES
[1] Sunit Shah, D.M. Adhyaru,
Boiler Efficiency
Analysis Using Direct Method, IEEE International
conference on Current trends in technology, NUiCONE
2011, 978-1- 4577-2168-7/11.
[2] Brad Buecker, Basics of Boiler and HRSG Design,
Pennwell Books, 2002.
[3] Daogang Peng, Hao Zhang, Kai Zhang, Hui Li, Fei Xia,
Research and Development of the Remote I/O Data
Acquisition System Based on Embedded ARM Platform,
IEEE International conference on Electronic Computer
Technology, 2009, 978-0-7695-3559-3/09.
[4] Electrical system, Bureau of Energy Efficiency,
http://www.enercon.gov.pk/images/pdf/3ch1.pdf
[5] Power India, Department of Industrial Policy and
Promotion, Ministry of Commerce and Industry,
Government of India, http://dipp.nic.in/English/Investor
/Investers_Guidlines/Power.pdf
[6] Computerized Information Technology, http://www.
cituk online.com/acatalog/Thermal_Power_Plants .html
[7] Energy Performance Assessment of Boilers, Bureau of
Energy Efficiency.
[8] Boilers, Bureau of energy Efficiency.
[9] P.K. Nag, Engineering Thermodynamics, 3rd Edition,
Tata Mc Graw Hill.
[10] Chayalakshmi C.L, D.S. Jangamshetti, Savita Sonoli,
Real Time Remote Monitoring and Measurement of
Loss due to Dry Flue Gas for an Industrial Boiler, 3rd
International Conference on Advances in Power
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, vol.150,
pp.490-495, ISSN:1876-1100, ISBN:978-1-4614-3362-0,
August 2012, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
[11] LPC2119/2129/2194/2292/2294 User Manual, Philips
Semiconductor, 2004.

Read the temperature of feed water through channel

0 and the pressure of steam coming out through
channel 1 of an internal 10 bit ADC
Get the specific enthalpy of water and specific
enthalpy of evaporation from look up table
Calculate enthalpy of feed water and enthalpy of
steam using Equations 2 and 3
Calculate percentage Boiler efficiency
Display Efficiency

STOP

Fig. 6: Flow chart of the system

Fig. 7: Boiler efficiency when feed water temperature is 35C.

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