ALSTOM Gasifier Control Based On Stabilizer Design

Gasifier plays a key role in the operation of the whole IGCC power plant, whose control problem remains unresolved yet. It is a typical multivariable control system with strict constraints on the inputs and outputs which makes it very difficult to control. To improve the performance, this paper presents a stabilizer design for the ALSTOM gasifier based on the baseline controller proposed for the benchmark challenge problem. The stabilizer adds a simple proportional gain feedback from the fuel gas pressure to the coal flow without changing the structure of the existing control structure, thus is easy to implement and test in practice. Simulation results show that the simple stabilizer can indeed improve the performance of the baseline controller and the disturbance rejection capabilities, and this design will be bound to be widely used in future.