Improving the safety of the firing process and the protection of the operating personnel in Anode Baking Furnaces is a major concern. Hazard assessment has lead to the conclusion that the main risk in Furnace operations is the occurrence of a blocked flue situation that can lead to explosions. Depending on the blockage configuration, a simple monitoring of static pressure or even fume flow cannot provide 100% reliability. This paper describes a fully reliable blocked flue detection system based on the Normal distribution statistic theory. The system allows a real time comparison of a blockage index calculated from static pressure, flow rate and temperature measurements in each flue wall of the first preheated section. When an index is outside the normal distribution of the other flue walls, a blocked flue alarm is raised. A major advantage of the described solution is that the required calculation algorithm can be integrated as a safety function, directly at the controller level.
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