Projects

DITEC

Development of Innovative Instrumental Techniques for Coal Combustion

Title of Programme
ECSC COAL RTD PROGRAMME 
 
Financing Code for Project
7220-PR/076
Project start year - end year 1999 - 2002
Financing organisation
ECSC COAL RTD PROGRAMME
Coordinator Centro Sviluppo Materiali S.p.A. (CSM)
Other partners
 
 
Soluziona Ingenieria SA
Aerosol and Particle Technology Laboratory (APTL)
University of Zaragoza (LITEC)
 
 
 
Budget / APTL Budget ? € /? €
Scientific Manager / Project researcher A. G. Konstandopoulos / D. Zarvalis
Project website  
Summary
The aim of the project is to investigate and develop new monitoring and control systems which can be employed to improve flame control in coal combustion installations increasing the efficiency of the burners and reducing the environmental impact.
The objective is to develop and test new types of sensors, which can provide direct information on the properties of the flame. On the other hand, in order to be adequate for their installation in industrial plants, such sensors must be rugged and of an ‘acceptable’ cost.
Flame monitoring is achieved developing new devices and methods to measure:
  1. Flame temperature
  2. Flame composition in terms of CO and CO2
  3. Particulate material into the flame: size, shape and concentration
  4. Flame image analysis
  5. Flame acoustic analysis
  6. Pressure fluctuations into the combustion chamber (microphone sensor)
  7. Flame optical emission in the UV-IR region
All the measurements carried out with the innovative sensors are compared with the data provided by the traditional sensors, manly CO and NOx analysis in the stack of the plant and thermocouples for furnace temperature. Cross correlation among new and traditional data is carried out.
Experimental activity was carried out to test and check the validity of the measuring devices. A special part of the project was dedicated to the modifications and adaptation of the combustion plant, in order to make them suitable to test innovative sensors and control strategies.
An intense experimental activity was performed to build a library of combustion data, which is used for the development of the control system.
The control systems have been developed based on two different control strategies: neural network and fuzzy logic.