The Characterization of Pulverized-Coal Pneumatic Transport Using an Array of Intrusive Electrostatic Sensors

Fan/impact mills are commonly applied in the grinding and dilute-pneumatic transportation of lignite or brown coals with high moisture contents to the furnaces in large steam boilers. Each of the two to eight mills feeds pulverized coal into two or more burner nozzles. An online detection of the pulverized-coal mass flow distribution among the burners is vital for the control of the combustion process. Knowing the distribution, measures for the redistribution of the coal or, alternatively, for the adjustment of the combustion air flow according to the actual distribution can be employed. Determining the characteristics of a gas-solid two-phase flow using an electrostatic principle is a promising online method of measurement because it is robust and inexpensive. Furthermore, due to their better spatial sensitivity, rod sensors are more suitable for large rectangular ducts related to fan/impact mills than ring-, pin-, or arc-shaped sensors. Sets of 1-D and 2-D electrostatic sensor arrays with a corresponding data acquisition system were employed to determine the mass flow distribution in the cross section of the duct that feeds the pulverized lignite to the four burner nozzles. Various operating regimes for the fan/impact mill were tested. The time series of the signals from the electrostatic sensors were analyzed statistically. It was shown that the skewness, kurtosis, and autocorrelation time delay at the characteristic value can indicate different grinding qualities of the coal.