Fully Automatic Heat Meter Based On Embedded System Design And Implementation

The fact of the development of power industry and the scale-up ofcoal-fired boiler has prompted a number of studies of using high-tech incoal quality detection, in which the determination of calorific value ofcoal is a key. According to the specific requirements of the machine andthe previous work based on PCI, this paper presents a design andimplementation of automatic calorimeter based on embedded system.The calorimeter consists of two separate subsystems. A dataacquisition and control system based on USB interface, whichconcentrating on USB communication, multi-channel high resolutiontemperature measurements and automatic operation. A embedded displayand operation platform with a core microprocessor of S3C2410, hardwareincluding memory, display and communication module, softwareincluding arm-Linux, Qt/Embedded and Qtopia, a USB device driver anda calorimeter GUI application were also developed on the platform.In view of widely used bomb calorimeters based on Wintelarchitecture, a automatic calorimeter based on embedded system providesa better synthetic performance including cost, operation, expansibility;and minimizing the operator time required per test. The new machinefeatures a high resolution temperature measurement system(range15～28℃, 0.001℃resolution), full diagnostics for electronics andmechanical systems, communication control and operation automatization.The instrument is calibrated by burning certified benzoic acid todetermine "water equivalent", and experimental results of these fivecalibrations below 0.1％RSD precision. The heat of combustion oftesting samples determined under standard conditions is calculated on thebasis of the observed temperature rise while taking account of heat loss,and calorific error is below 30J/g. The product, which is fully met withnational standards, has been proved reliable, accurate and easy to operatein many power plants.