Winter 2001
Volume 3, Number 2
  


Smoke School by Susan J. Burlingame
University engineers
certify smoke readers

Visible air pollution, even if it is not harmful, can be a real issue for people viewing the smoke or steam that comes out of smokestacks. The Federal Air Pollution Act of 1963 stated that even if the appearance of a smokestack "unreasonably interferes with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property," then something must be done about it. Visually assessing smoke plumes can also help determine if pollutants are being emitted into the atmosphere.

Based on this and on the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania set standards for the opacity — or amount of light that gets through the smoke — of smoke plumes. The Commonwealth has mandated that every industry or building that has a permit for its boiler or heating system needs to have a certified smoke plume reader on site.

Smoke plumes come out of smokestacks on all kinds of buildings. Housing units, industries, hospitals and schools —to name a few — are all subject to daily inspection to ensure that a smoke plume does not have an opacity of 20 percent or more, according to Pennsylvania standards. These same standards are common throughout most of the country. Daily inspections need to be done by certified smoke readers — which is where Penn State comes in.

About 30 years ago, when the Commonwealth was setting its standards, Pennsylvania asked engineers at Penn State to train state employees to “read” smoke plumes. This meant individuals needed to be able to visually differentiate between steam, particles in the air (i.e., “smoke”) and a combination of steam and particles, as well as be able to estimate the percentage of opacity of smoke plumes.

To provide support to the Commonwealth, then Penn State professor of mechanical engineering Dr. Robert Jennings Heinsohn, now professor emeritus, developed a Visible Emissions Training Program in accordance with Environmental Protection Agency standards. Once Pennsylvania mandated that a certified plume reader be on site at all buildings with a boiler permit, the program, informally known as “Smoke School,” expanded and began training many industry employees and boiler operators, as well as lawyers, consultants, students and others. People from other states also began enrolling in the training program. Virtually anyone with acceptable visual acuity — even those who are color blind — may attend Smoke School and work to receive this certification.

Smoke School training is a two-day program. The first day consists of a series of lectures, presented by Penn State professor of mechanical engineering Dr. John M. Cimbala, who took over some of Heinsohn’s duties. Cimbala covers topics such as sources of particle emissions, opacity, steam plumes and meteorology. This is followed by practice plume reading, led by certification test instructor Vernon Irwin.

Penn State has a portable 15-foot high plume simulator that is used to create both black and white smoke plumes of varying degrees of opacity. Using the opacity benchmarks of zero, 25, 50, 75 and 100 percent, participants learn to train their eyes to estimate opacity to within a 7.5 percent margin of error. The participants are then tested for their ability to estimate the opacity. To pass the test and become certified, smoke readers must read 25 black and 25 white plumes of random opacity. They must be able to estimate the opacity of the plumes within a 7.5 percent margin of error and may not estimate any one plume with an error of 20 percent or more. A second day of certification testing is offered for those unable to pass the test on the first day.

In terms of practical application, a daily smoke plume reading helps boiler operators know when to adjust their boiler’s combustion parameters. Plumes that are consistently above 20 percent in opacity can be shut down for repair before any serious situation occurs. Regular reports to the Department of Environmental Protection help the department watch suspect smokestacks more closely. Though there is an instrument, called a transmissometer, that can be used to determine plume opacity and though many larger smokestacks are required to have one, the Commonwealth still requires that a trained individual do a daily visual reading in order to be able to make quick adjustments.

Because the Environmental Protection Agency requires that smoke readers be recertified every six months, three Smoke Schools are run each fall and spring. Approximately 50 to 70 people are trained or recertified every six months at Penn State McKeesport, Penn State Lehigh Valley and Penn State University Park.

“There is a correlation between visible emissions and the mass of pollutants in the atmosphere,” noted Heinsohn, who emphasized that visual opacity is only one of a broad range of standards in determining if a plume is emitting pollutants into the air.

“Over the decades,” Cimbala said, “the quality of air has improved, both in the amount of pollutants in the air and in the appearance of smoke plumes. We are certifying people who are part of that process, and we take this chore very seriously.”

“I believe the public is well-served,” Heinsohn added.

An outreach program of the College of Engineering and the Environmental Resources Research Institute


Students in Penn State’s Smoke School learn how to read smoke plumes during a certification training program held at The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. Federal and state standards mandate that every industry or building with a permit for its boiler or heating system must have a certified smoke plume reader on site. The training program uses a portable 15-foot high plume simulator to prepare participants for the certification test.




Recognizing exemplary outreach teaching, research and service
This Penn State faculty member is sharing research with individuals, organizations and communities to make life better:

Professor Ellen P. Barbrow
Assistant Professor of Dietetics
College of Health and Human Development
Penn State University Park

For more than 25 years, Ellen P. Barbrow has been a faculty leader in the design, development, implementation and evaluation of Independent Learning courses. She was responsible for developing a professional associate degree in dietetics through distance education. This degree, the first-of-its-kind at Penn State for nutrition and dietetics professionals, has served as a model for faculty members interested in increasing access to educational programs and to meaningful careers with underserved populations. She has taught or collaborated on 12 different Independent Learning courses and offers her assistance to other Penn State faculty members developing distance learning degree courses and programs.

  

U.Ed.OCE 01-8002/mkm/GSM