A METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH TO KNOWLEDGE-BASED CONTROL AND ITS APPLICATION TO A MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE INCINERATION PLANT

ABSTRACT

In this work we have developed a knowledge-based combustion control system for a municipal solid waste incinerator plant. A dynamic model for a grate furnace has been proposed to analyse the relationships between the variables and obtain the rules for the knowledge bases. The input variables used were: furnace temperature, furnace pressure drop, power generated and oxygen content in the combustion gases. On the other hand, the output variables were: the actions that the operator should perform for waste feeding, the flow and the combustion air temperature with the aim of controlling the furnace temperature. The support tools used to control the process were abstractors, ALCMEN (Automaticians Language for Causal Modelling for Expert Knowledge) and SimCEES (C⁺⁺ Embedded Expert System). To validate them, the real values of the furnace temperature have been compared with those obtained using a simplified combustion mathematical model and those obtained using the expert system.

Keywords:

• expert systems
• real-time control
• incineration plant
• municipal solid waste
• pollution control

This study has been possible thanks to the coordinated project DPI2003-09392-C02-01 financed by the Interministerial Committee on Science and Technology (CICyT) of the Spanish Government. The authors would like to express their deepest thanks to Mr. Alfred Viñas, manager of the Girona incinerator, for allowing us to enter the plant and measure experimental data. We also thank J. L. de la Rosa and J. Meléndez, associated professors at the University of Girona for their help and collaboration with the computing tools.

Notes

H: hot; N: normal; C: cold; h: heating; c: cooling.

H: hot; N: normal; C: cold; h: heating; c: cooling.

H: hot; N: normal; C: cold; h: heating; c: cooling.

+ +: Increasing greatly; + : Increasing; = : Keeping invariable; –: Decreasing; 0: Stopping.