Controlling combustion in a double burner boiler using a Prolog rule-base on a personal computer system

Rules for adjusting, individually, the air-intake to each of a number of burners, depending the concentration of oxygen and of carbon monoxide monitored in their common flue were elicited from energy engineers. The rules, together with a shell and all necessary interfacing software, were coded into Turbo Prolog on a personal computer. An air-inlet valve was fixed to each of 8 burners on one zone of the furnace of a continuous annealing line for rolled steel and a thermocouple and an oxygen and a carbon monoxide analyser set in the common flue. These were connected to the computer via an analog/digital converter and the system was then run successfully with good results on the furnace for about one month until the experimental hardware became unusable. One of five double burner boilers in the steam generating plant of a tinplate finishing works was chosen for long term testing of the system and equipped with durable air-inlet louvres to the burners and an oxygen and a carbon monoxide analyser and a thermocouple in the common flue