American Air Liquide, Inc.

L'air Liquide, Societe Anonyme Pour L'etude Et L'exploitation Des

William Von Drasek

Harley A Borders

Louis C Philippe

Eric L Duchateau

David I Weinstein

Jean-Yves Iatrides

Fouad M Moukannas

Gary S Furman

In accordance with the present invention, methods and apparatus to control or monitor the combustion of a burner are presented which overcome many of the problems of the prior art. One aspect of the invention comprises a burner control apparatus comprising means for viewing light emitted by a flame from a burner, means for optically transporting the viewed light into an optical processor, optical processor means for processing the optical spectrum into electrical signals, signal processing means for processing the electrical signals obtained from the optical spectrum, and control means which accept the electrical signals and produce an output acceptable to one or more oxidant or fuel flow control means. The control means may be referred to as a 'burner computer', which functions to control the oxidant flow and/or the fuel flow to the burner. In a particularly preferred apparatus embodiment of the invention, a burner and the burner control apparatus are integrated into a single unit, which may be referred to as a 'smart' burner.

Method and apparatus for optical flame control of combustion burners

An oxy-fuel burner according to the present invention includes an outer oxidant tube, an intermediate fuel tube and an inner oxidant tube which are coaxially arranged with the fuel tube disposed between the inner and outer oxidant tubes. Characteristics of the flame produced by the burner may be controlled by varying the relative flow rates of the inner and outer oxidant flows. An increase in the percentage of the total oxidant which is provided to the inner oxidant tube causes the length and luminosity of the flame to decrease and the flame momentum to increase. According to the present invention, the characteristics of a burner flame can be tailored to a particular application without requiring mechanical modification of the burner.

Oxy-fuel burner having coaxial fuel and oxidant outlets

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Oak Forrest, IL, United States of America

William Von Drasek