Abstract

Real-time temperature surveillance of the reactions and phase transformations in the flash smelting furnaces burner flame is of vital importance to assess the operational process. For this purpose, a radiometric optical system based on a visible to near-infrared (VIS-NIR) spectrometer fit with a specialized method is proposed as a sensor for industrial flash copper smelters, thus providing real-time information to aid process control. The proposed sensor captures the burners flame irradiance to estimate temperature and emissivity using an optimization-based multiwavelength estimation method rooted around Planck's radiation model. This multiwavelength method (MWM) is capable of calculating radiometric temperature and spectral emissivity, without previous knowledge of the emissivity model. In this work, different optimization algorithms were used to solve the multiwavelength model, and the results are compared with the commonly used two-wavelength pyrometric method for data obtained in laboratory and industrial copper smelter scenarios. The method's robustness in the presence of additive white noise is studied between -30 and 30 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The MWM reported minimum temperature error values of 4 & DEG;C and a relative error under 10% for an SNR of -30 dB, giving this method essential characteristics for industrial applications, measurement accuracy, and robustness.