Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Wall Heat Fluxes in a Gas Fired Furnace: Practicable Models for Swirling Non-Premixed Combustion

• Main Authors: J. Broukal, J. Vondál, J. Hájek
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: AIDIC Servizi S.r.l. 2012-09-01
• Series: Chemical Engineering Transactions
• Online Access: https://www.cetjournal.it/index.php/cet/article/view/7230

Natural gas combustion and combustion of other light hydrocarbon gases is still one of the primary means of gaining heat. This applies especially for process and energy industries, where gas combustion is used as heat source for various processes. It is therefore of crucial importance, that the combustion chamber is designed properly in order to optimize the heat transfer process. Recently, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) tools have proved themselves as a great potential aid for designers and engineers. These tools allow predicting of various phenomena of practical interest. The main focus of this study is to validate a numerical model for swirling combustion in terms of wall heat fluxes using reliable measured data. The first part of this study deals with the experimental measurement of wall heat fluxes. Two burner duties are taken into account: 745 kW and 1120 kW. The second part consists in a numerical analysis of the problem. The simulations are performed using unsteady RANS with four different turbulence models coupled with chemistry and radiation models. Boundary conditions are set identically to the experiment. Two simulations are performed (one for each burner duty) and fine-tuned. The measured and simulated wall heat flux profiles are finally compared and shortcomings if the numerical model are reported and discussed.