Abstract: The grate cooler, as a core equipment in the new dry-process cement clinker production line, directly affects the production system's output, energy consumption, and product quality. In response to issues such as excessive load on the grate cooler after the preheater system upgrade, leading to large fluctuations in the material layer, oscillations in fan current, frequent adjustments by operators, and instability of secondary and tertiary air temperatures, a lightweight expert control system for the grate cooler was developed based on thermal balance theory and multivariable control technology. By dividing the air volume control zones into high, medium, and low temperature sections, setting the standard air volume per unit of clinker, and integrating neural network modeling and model predictive algorithms, the system achieves adaptive cooperative regulation of the grate speed and fan air volume. Application results show that after system implementation, the average daily clinker output increased by 181t/d, standard coal consumption per ton of clinker decreased by 0.45kgce/t, waste heat boiler power generation increased by 0.94kW·h/t, and Pyro system power consumption decreased by 1.02kW·h/t. Moreover, fluctuations in secondary and tertiary air temperatures were significantly reduced, with substantial improvements in equipment operational stability and energy utilization efficiency, providing a technical reference for the optimization of similar equipment in the cement industry.
