Automatic air-flow settings in combustion systems and associated methods

Abstract

Systems and methods iteratively solve a fired-systems model of the process heater based on fuel information, a target heat release of the plurality of burners, ambient air information, and available airflow at each of the plurality of burners to identify optimized burner air register settings to achieve a target global excess oxygen level to be sensed by the oxygen sensor. The optimized burner air register settings may be output to a heater controller of the process heater for control of the process heater.

1 . A combustion system comprising:
 a heater having a heater housing;   an air source coupled to the process heater via air ductwork;   a plurality of burners configured to combust a fuel source with the air source to produce thermal energy, each burner including a burner air register configurable to one of a plurality of burner air register settings to control input of the air source into the burner; and,   an oxygen sensor configured to generate a sensed oxygen level inside the heater;   a processor; and   a memory operatively coupled to the processor and storing:
 an air-side analyzer comprising computer readable instructions that when executed by the processor operate to:
 iteratively solve a fired-systems model of the process heater based on fuel information, a target heat release of the plurality of burners, ambient air information, and available airflow at each of the plurality of burners to identify optimized burner air register settings to achieve a target global excess oxygen level to be sensed by the oxygen sensor, and, 
 output the optimized burner air register settings to a heater controller of the process heater. 
 
   
     
     
         2 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the plurality of burners being separated into burner zones within the heater housing. 
     
     
         3 . The combustion system of  claim 2 , each burner zone having a respective target heat release; the computer readable instructions that operate to iteratively solve the fired-systems model further operating to:
 solve the fired-systems model according to each respective target heat release of each burner zone.   
     
     
         4 . The combustion system of  claim 2 , each burner zone having a respective target excess oxygen level; the computer readable instructions that operate to iteratively solve the fired-systems model further operating to:
 solve the fired-systems model to achieve each respective target excess oxygen level of each burner zone.   
     
     
         5 . The combustion system of  claim 4 , each respective target excess oxygen level of each burner zone being above, below, or equal to a target global oxygen level, and the cumulative excess oxygen equaling the target global excess oxygen level. 
     
     
         6 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the ambient air information being sensed by sensors proximate the heater housing or obtained from a third-party weather server. 
     
     
         7 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the available airflow at each burner being known based on information about each respective burner. 
     
     
         8 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the available airflow at each burner being determined by the air-flow analyzer based on the pressure differential across each burner. 
     
     
         9 . The combustion system of  claim 8 , the pressure differential being determined based on ductwork air pressure sensor data and in-heater pressure data. 
     
     
         10 . The combustion system of  claim 9 , the in-heater pressure data defining draft within the heater. 
     
     
         11 . The combustion system of  claim 9 , the in-heater pressure data being interpolated for each of the plurality of burners from pressure sensor data from a pressure sensor located at a known location from each of the plurality of burners. 
     
     
         12 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the fired-systems model being generated based on manual testing data of the heater. 
     
     
         13 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the fired-systems model being defined by physics-based models of air-flow within the heater housing. 
     
     
         14 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the fired-systems model being defined by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the heater. 
     
     
         15 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the fired-systems model being tuned based on real-time sensed data from within the heater, computational fluid dynamics data of the heater, historical data of the heater and/or other heaters similar to the heater, or any combination thereof. 
     
     
         16 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the computer readable instructions that operate to iteratively solve the fired-systems model further operating to: identify optimized stack damper settings and/or optimized air-flow handling settings to achieve a target global excess oxygen level to be sensed by the oxygen sensor. 
     
     
         17 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the computer readable instructions that iteratively solve the fired-systems model operating to: solve the fired-systems model based on one or more constraints. 
     
     
         18 . The combustion system of  claim 17 , the one or more constraints requiring the optimized burner air register settings to include at least one burner air register at full-open setting. 
     
     
         19 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the computer readable instructions that when executed by the processor further operate to: iteratively solve the fired-systems model based on a desired number of burner air register changes over a future period of time to identify optimized stack damper settings and/or optimized air-handling settings to define a necessary draft range within the heater that can withstand weather variations over the future period of time. 
     
     
         20 . The combustion system of  claim 19 , the computer readable instructions that when executed by the processor further operate to: identify the optimized stack damper settings and/or optimized air-handling settings that define the necessary draft range and maintain predicted operational cost below a predefined operational cost threshold. 
     
     
         21 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the computer readable instructions that when executed by the processor further operate to: receive sensed data from within the heater after implementation of the optimized burner air register settings, the optimized stack damper settings, the optimized air-flow handling settings, or any combination thereof; and output an alert when the sensed data varies from expected data. 
     
     
         22 . The combustion system of  claim 21 , the alert including an audible, visual, or tactile indication on the heater controller. 
     
     
         23 . The combustion system of  claim 21 , the alert including a remediation action that shuts down the heater. 
     
     
         24 . The combustion system of  claim 1 , the air-side analyzer being located remotely from the heater controller; the output the optimized burner air register settings to a heater controller of the process heater including transmitting the optimized burner air register settings to the heater controller. 
     
     
         25 . A method for automatic air-register settings in a combustion system, the method comprising:
 iteratively solving a fired-systems model of a process heater, of the combustion system, based on fuel information, a target heat release of a plurality of burners in the process heater, ambient air information, and available airflow at each of the plurality of burners to identify optimized burner air register settings to achieve a target global excess oxygen level to be sensed by an oxygen sensor that senses oxygen level inside the process heater; and,   output the optimized burner air register settings to a heater controller of the process heater.   
     
     
         26 . The method of  claim 25 , further comprising: receiving sensed data from within the heater after implementation of the optimized burner air register settings, the optimized stack damper settings, the optimized air-flow handling settings, or any combination thereof; and outputting an alert when the sensed data varies from expected data. 
     
     
         27 . The method of  claim 26 , the alert including an audible, visual, or tactile indication on the heater controller. 
     
     
         28 . The method of  claim 26 , the alert including a remediation action that shuts down the heater.