Generating a representative signal of coal ash content to anticipate combustion control in a thermal power station

This paper describes the possibilities of continuously measuring coal ash in the boiler feeding circuit of a thermal power station so that the measurement can be used as a signal for the boiler combustion control system. An installation was designed, at semi-industrial scale, that could faithfully reproduce the operation of a belt feeder. In order to measure the ash content, a natural radioactivity meter was installed and a large number of coal samples with different ranks and grain sizes were tested, eventually showing the possibility of achieving the objective.