Application Of Relevance Maps Method To Evaluate The Suitability Of Coal Samples For Fluidal Gasification Process

The coal gasification process is one of the technologies which gain more and more attention among technologists dealing with processing and utilization of coal. In case of ground gasification, one of such technologies is fluidized bed gasification. For such gasification the guidelines were elaborated within the scientific project of NCBiR no. 23.23.100.8498/R34 Authors chose main of these guidelines, concerning the required levels of certain coal features. In purpose of investigating coal for its suitability to gasification, samples were collected from two Polish mines: ZG Janina and ZG Wieczorek and processed properly. The methods being used to visualization of multidimensional data through transformation of multidimensional space into two-dimensional space allow to present multidimensional data on computer screen. Among such methods, relevance maps method can be found which was used in this paper to present and analyze set of seven-dimensional data describing coal samples originating from both mines. It was decided to check whether this method of visualization of multidimensional data allows to divide the samples space into subspaces of various usefulness to the process of fluidal gasification or not. The method enables the visualisation of the optimal subspace containing the set requirements concerning the properties of coals intended for this process.