Combustion emission estimation with flame sensing system

摘要

There is described a method and apparatus for controlling the combustion by-product formation rate in at least one burner of a fossil fuel fired power plant. The burner has an associated flame scanner which is focused on a small area of the burner flame to obtain an image signal of the flame. A flame signal that represents properties of temporal combustion in the visible light spectrum of the burner is generated from the image signal. Combustion turbulence at the burner is analyzed from the flame signal by a dynamic invariant that has a relationship to the combustion by-product values and different combustion by-product levels at the burner and the combustion turbulence is correlated to the combustion by-product formation rate at the burner. The method and apparatus can also be used to correlated the combustion turbulence at a multiplicity of burners to the associated combustion by-product formation rate.