Title: CFD modelling of a radiant tube burner for liquid and gaseous fuels

Authors: Frank Kleine Jager, Jan Mevissen, Andreas Munko, Heinrich Kohne

Addresses: Department of Heat and Mass Transfer, RWTH Aachen, Germany. ' Department of Heat and Mass Transfer, RWTH Aachen, Germany. ' Department of Heat and Mass Transfer, RWTH Aachen, Germany. ' Department of Heat and Mass Transfer, RWTH Aachen, Germany

Abstract: In addition to the development of a radiant tube burner, numerical simulations were carried out at the Department of Heat and Mass Transfer (EST), RWTH Aachen (Germany), with the aim of increasing the process knowledge of the combustion concept and to optimise the burner operation. The capacity range of the burner is 20–40 kW (70,000–1,40,000 btu/hr), as combustible fuel oil and gas is used. The radiant tube burner was developed for high temperature applications and investigated at furnace temperatures of 1,000°C (1,830°F). Despite of the fact that the combustion air was preheated to a temperature of 850°C (1,560°F), extremely low emissions were achieved even when fuel oil is used as combustible. At a firing rate of 39 kW (1,33,000 btu/hr), the NOx emissions were at approx. 100 ppm (3%O2/fuel oilζN,Fuel = 140 mgNFuel

Keywords: CFD modelling; staged combustion; radiant tube burner; flue gas recirculation; NO emissions; nitrogen oxide; computational fluid dynamics; liquid fuels; gaseous fuels; numerical simulation; burner optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/PCFD.2005.007427

Progress in Computational Fluid Dynamics, An International Journal, 2005 Vol.5 No.7, pp.406 - 413

Published online: 18 Jul 2005 *

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