The Development of Automatic Combustion Control Systems for Industrial and Power Station Boilers

The paper shows that automatic control systems have been developed mainly in order to prevent smoke, to maintain load against demand, to carry out routine adjustments, to facilitate the group control of boilers, to increase boiler house efficiencies, and to provide interlocking safeguards and self-acting cut-out devices.Dealing with principles and methods rather than with mechanical details, the paper describes with reference to fundamental diagrams and special drawings the main features and capabilities of thirteen of the more important control systems. The paper deals also with the factors upon which speed of response and accurate combustion control depend, questions of boiler feed, the elimination of “hunting” of the controls, and the considerations which affect the choice of mechanisms for operating the controls.Test results are given, and the desirability of using automatic combustion control, even in the case of base-load stations, is urged.