This task grew out of a proposal to develop a 'concept' oil-fired heating system that would incorporate advanced technologies available and suitable for a residential system. Discussions among the program and project personnel resulted in the identification of a sealed combustion system as of programmatic interest and the objective was to develop an approach to a sealed system with diagnostic self-tuning. The major conclusion with regard to the specific objective for this task is that a measurement of the static pressure in the input pipe can be used to provide a measure of the excess air for a limit control. Its implementation would require a suitable pressure sensor, and a circuit to combine its output signal, at the appropriate time in the operating cycle, to the burner control. The sensor and control combination will also have to be tested successfully under all conceivable contingencies that can cause the airflow to decrease. It could also be implemented, possibly even more reliably, if a mass flow sensor, such as is used in automobile engines and hence may be cheap, could be used. The pressure measurements reported here, both steady and transient, represent only the subset of a much larger set that gave a useful answer to meet the objective.
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