A temperature tomographic sensor for combustion analysis

Environmental regulations in industrialised countries are becoming more stringent and require the minimisation of pollutant emissions in combustion processes together with the reduction of energy consumption. This can only be achieved in full scale combustion chambers by adopting advanced monitoring and control techniques based on non-intrusive combustion diagnostics. This paper reports the development, implementation and test of a laboratory flame 3D temperature sensor which allows for the tomographic reconstruction of the temperature field, based on the flame radiation emitted at /spl lambda/=800 nm and /spl lambda/=900 nm. The current work aims to contribute to overcome the difficulties on the application of tomographic techniques to large scale combustion systems by adopting new strategies for flame data collection and processing. In this paper the various stages for the development of a flame tomographic sensor are presented, namely: a review of the physical concepts involved, together with the selection, development, optimisation and implementation of tomographic algorithms. The design and assembly of the laboratory rig, the experimental procedure, and the evaluation of the results obtained, are also discussed.