Digital Imaging Based Measurement of Combustion Flame Characteristics

This paper presents the system software development and the experimental calibration of a flame imaging system. The new system software is developed based on a unique architecture through a careful combination of Visual Basic and Visual C programming strategies for better system stability and response time. The imaging system is calibrated using high standard blackbody sources as temperature/light references over the temperature range from 800degC to 1650degC for an improved measurement accuracy of flame temperature. The new system software and calibration curves are evaluated through off-line analysis where flame images captured in previous tests on industry-scale coal combustion test facilities are used. Test results and their comparisons with online data are presented and discussed.