Control system for a coal gasification plant

Claim 1

In an apparatus including a reactor to gasify fine-particle fuels under pressure, a main pressure tank having a level controller to maintain a desired fine-particle fuel level therein while such fuel and a partial quantity of vehicle gas are delivered therefrom by a fuel-feed conduit for introduction into said reactor, a vehicle-feed conduit coupled to said fuel-feed conduit for introducing the major portion of vehicle gas to convey said fine-particle fuel into said reactor, and conduit means to feed a gasification agent into said reactor, the combination therewith of a control system to maintain a predetermined volumetric ratio between said fine-particle fuel and said gasification agent during feeding into said reactor, said control system comprising: first measuring means responsive to absorption of electromagnetic radiation by said fine-particle fuel in said fuel-feed line for producing a fuel-feed signal corresponding to the volumetric amount of fuel conducted by said fuel-feed line per unit of time, second measuring means responsive to the volumetric amount of vehicle gas conducted by said vehicle-feed conduit to produce a vehicle gas-feed signal, computing means responsive to said fuel-feed signal and said vehicle gas-feed signal to produce a control signal according to the following expression U.sub.1 . (U.sub.2 - U.sub.v) for all values of U 2 greater than U v , where U 1 corresponds to the reciprocal of said fuel-feed signal, U 2 corresponds to said vehicle gas-feed signal, and U v is a predetermined comparison signal constant, first control valve means responsive to said control signal to vary the volumetric amount of vehicle gas introduced into said pressure tank for loosening and discharging fine-particle fuel into said fuel-feed conduit, and second control valve means responsive to said control signal to vary the volumetric amount of gasification agent fed by said conduit means into said reactor.