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AssigneeEnvironmental Data Corporation
InventorsDale W. Egan, Lyman F. Gilbert, Harry C. Lord, Alan E. Opel, Geoffrey B. Holstrom
Estimating the term…
A furnace containing a burner, supplied by fuel to be ignited at the burner, in the presence of air, is provided with a viewing duct for viewing the flame and means for detecting the radiation intensity at a plurality of different wavelengths of the radiation spectrum. The output from the detector is amplified and integrated and a signal representing the ratio of intensities at the selected wavelengths is applied to an indicator to indicate fuel-air ratio and also is applied to control means for the fuel flow or the air flow, or both, to control the fuel-air ratio at the burner and to maintain it substantially constant at a desired value. This can be done at more than one burner, providing balanced furnace operation. With this balanced furnace, there is improved firing efficiency, resulting in fuel saving and lowered pollution emissions. A computer type master controller can be used to correlate the fuel-air ratios for the individual burners.
In combination with a furnace of the type having a burner where fuel is burned in the presence of air to create a flame, means for delivering fuel to the burner, and means for delivering air to the burner;
In combination with a furnace of the type having a plurality of burners at each of which fuel is burned in the presence of air to create a flame, means for delivering fuel to each of said burners, and means for delivering air to each of said burners:
The method of obtaining an indication of the ratio of fuel and air supplied to a burner to maintain a flame, which comprises separating the radiation emission from the flame into spectral wave length components and measuring the intensity of at least two of the components the ratio of which is related to the ratio of fuel and air.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.