Low-cost Camera System for Online Estimation of Grain Size in Fluidized Bed

Abstract

AbstractAt present, the production of energy has to be capable of responding to fast and unexpected changes, which may originate from changes in the fuel quality or in the energy demands, for example. New fuels and their co-combustion, added to the growing demands for process efficiency and the efforts to reduce harmful emissions have generated an increasing need for monitoring the processes, and new kinds of measurements and tools are needed to meet those challenges. Monitoring the condition of the bed is increasingly important in fluidized bed combustion of biomass, and it is usually performed manually by sieving the bottom ash. This is expensive and laborious, however, and should be either automated or alternative methods for estimating the bed quality should be developed if possible. In this paper we present an online inspection system for estimating the coarseness of the bed material using digital images taken from the bottom ash.