TY - GEN
T1 - Furnace design for improved exhaust gas circulation and heat transfer efficiency
AU - Brimmo, Ayoola T.
AU - Hassan Ali, Mohamed I.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support of Khalifa University through the usage of the HPC clusters and software license. We would like to acknowledge the local aluminum company in Abu Dhabi for performing the onsite measurements.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 ASME
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - In the aluminum production industry, metal furnaces are operated by diffusion flame over the metal surface to maintain the aluminum metal at the set point temperature for alloying and casting. Heat is transferred from the flame and its exhaust gases to the metal surface via radiation and convection. The exhaust gases leaves through the furnace's chimney carrying a significant amount of waste heat to the atmosphere. Furnace efficiency could be improved by enhancing the heat transfer inside the furnace. In this study, a validated full-scale 3-D CFD model of a natural gas fired aluminum furnace is developed to investigate the effect of flue gas ventilation configurations and burner operating conditions on the heat transfer inside the furnace. Onsite measurements are carried out for the fuel and airflow rates as well as flue gas temperature. Four flue ventilation configurations are considered with eight furnace's operation modes. The flue-gas's waste-heat varies from 49-58%, with the highest value occurring at the high-fire operating mode. This indicates a significant room for improvement in the furnace performance. Results suggest that a symmetrical positioning of the exhaust duct favors effective exhaust gas circulation within the furnace and hence, increases hot-gases' heat-transfer effectiveness inside the furnace. These results provide some guidelines for optimal aluminum reverberatory furnace designs and operation.
AB - In the aluminum production industry, metal furnaces are operated by diffusion flame over the metal surface to maintain the aluminum metal at the set point temperature for alloying and casting. Heat is transferred from the flame and its exhaust gases to the metal surface via radiation and convection. The exhaust gases leaves through the furnace's chimney carrying a significant amount of waste heat to the atmosphere. Furnace efficiency could be improved by enhancing the heat transfer inside the furnace. In this study, a validated full-scale 3-D CFD model of a natural gas fired aluminum furnace is developed to investigate the effect of flue gas ventilation configurations and burner operating conditions on the heat transfer inside the furnace. Onsite measurements are carried out for the fuel and airflow rates as well as flue gas temperature. Four flue ventilation configurations are considered with eight furnace's operation modes. The flue-gas's waste-heat varies from 49-58%, with the highest value occurring at the high-fire operating mode. This indicates a significant room for improvement in the furnace performance. Results suggest that a symmetrical positioning of the exhaust duct favors effective exhaust gas circulation within the furnace and hence, increases hot-gases' heat-transfer effectiveness inside the furnace. These results provide some guidelines for optimal aluminum reverberatory furnace designs and operation.
KW - CFD Coupling Model
KW - Flue Gases Heat Loss
KW - Furnace Efficiency
KW - Furnace Heat Transfer
KW - Reverberatory Furnace
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85092662174&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1115/HT2020-9069
DO - 10.1115/HT2020-9069
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85092662174
T3 - ASME 2020 Heat Transfer Summer Conference, HT 2020, collocated with the ASME 2020 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting and the ASME 2020 18th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels, and Minichannels
BT - ASME 2020 Heat Transfer Summer Conference, HT 2020, collocated with the ASME 2020 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting and the ASME 2020 18th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels, and Minichannels
T2 - ASME 2020 Heat Transfer Summer Conference, HT 2020, collocated with the ASME 2020 Fluids Engineering Division Summer Meeting and the ASME 2020 18th International Conference on Nanochannels, Microchannels, and Minichannels
Y2 - 13 July 2020 through 15 July 2020
ER -