Overview
ISO 15239:2005 - Solid mineral fuels: Evaluation of the measurement performance of on-line analysers - provides standardized practices for assessing the measurement performance of all types of on-line analysers used for solid mineral fuels (e.g., coal, coke, lignite). The standard explains analyser types and installation configurations, defines key terms (bias, precision, interrogation zone, etc.), and prescribes procedures for testing, calibration confirmation and statistical assessment of analyser data.
Key topics and requirements
- Scope and purpose: Establishes practices to evaluate the stability, calibration validity and operational precision of on-line analysers.
- Analyser types: Describes major measurement principles - absorption/scattering, excitation, natural radiation emission, and property-change methods - and their typical interrogation geometries (transmission, backscatter).
- Installation configurations: Differentiates mainstream and sub‑stream analyser installations and addresses presentation of bulk solids, slurries and conditioned samples.
- Performance evaluation:
- Instrument stability: Assessed by static replicate measurements at operational intervals.
- Calibration validity: Confirmed by simultaneous comparative measurements against a reference test method across the operational range.
- Operational precision: Evaluated by comparing analyser values with reference values from separate reference procedures.
- Testing and statistics: Contains procedures and annexed material on comparative test methods, statistical assessment procedures (precision, bias, regression, repeatability) and specimen calculations.
- Supporting guidance: Informative annexes on on-line techniques, sources of measurement variance and reference standards.
Practical applications
ISO 15239 is used to:
- Prepare acceptance tests and commissioning protocols for new analyser installations.
- Specify performance criteria (precision, bias, stability) in procurement contracts and service agreements.
- Guide routine performance monitoring, calibration checks and troubleshooting of on-line coal analysers.
- Provide a consistent basis for data quality assurance, regulatory compliance and inter‑laboratory/comparative evaluations.
Who should use this standard
- Coal and coke producers, power stations and bulk fuel handlers implementing on-line quality monitoring.
- Instrument manufacturers, system integrators and calibration engineers designing or installing analysers.
- Quality control, process control and metrology teams responsible for analyser validation and performance audits.
- Standards bodies and technical committees developing testing protocols or procurement specifications.
Related standards (normative references)
ISO 15239 references core documents on terminology, sampling and statistics such as ISO 1213-2, ISO 13909 (sampling) and ISO 3534-1 (statistics), which are relevant when applying the evaluation methods in practice.
Keywords: ISO 15239, on-line analysers, solid mineral fuels, coal analyser performance, calibration, precision, stability, statistical assessment.