Real Time Remote Monitoring of Flare Combustion Efficiency

Real-time monitoring or even periodic testing of combustion efficiency (CE) of industrial flares remains a void in the current combustion and air emission measurement technology landscape.  Zeng and Morris have developed a method for remote measurement of flare CE using a staring multi-spectral imager.  The technique can produce a complete two dimensional map of CE across the flare flame and plume at frame rates between 20 and 30 frames per second, with specific regions of interest extracted to represent overall flare performance.  The authors received a grant in 2013 from the U.S. EPA Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program and have completed a Phase 1 study to prove the concept.  The experiment and the results of the Phase 1 study are presented in this paper along with a discussion of the applications for this technology.