Combustion Control

An accepted method to increase the efficiency in industrial furnaces and boilers is to control the ratio of air to fuel at the burner. When this ratio is near the stoichiometric ratio, fuel consumption is minimized. The optimum air fuel ratio is determined by a number of different methods: by measuring flue gas properties, flame emissions, air and fuel flows, or process heat inputs and outputs. This session provides a cross section of progress being made in active research and development projects around the world. The excess air control approaches reported on are chemical/electrochemical, optical, and thermal sensing of flames. All of these research projects represent sound application of basic science to practical industrial problems. The success of the projects will result in the availability of innovative technologies that will cost-effectively allow industry to control their combustion processes.