CFD modelling of a radiant tube burner for liquid and gaseous fuels (Q979527)

Summary: 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 \(1,000^{\circ}\, C (1,830^{\circ }F)\). Despite of the fact that the combustion air was preheated to a temperature of \(850^{\circ}\, \text C (1,560^{\circ}\, \text F)\), 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\% \(O_2\)/fuel oil \(\xi_{\text N,\text {Fuel}} = 140 \text{mg}_{\text{N\, Fuel}}\), and the CO emissions were below 25 ppm. For the isothermal case, the CFD results for the amount of recirculating gas flow inside the radiant tube showed a good agreement with the measured values.