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Furnaces
1.Introduction:
Furnaces are used throughout the industry to provide the heat, using the
combustion of fuels. These fuels are solid, liquid or gaseous. Furnaces consist
essentially of an insulated, refractory lined chamber containing tubes. Tubes
carry the process fluid to be heated, and sizes are device for burning the fuel in
air to generate hot gases. A great variety of geometries and sizes are used, and
much of the skill employed in their design is based on experience. However, all
furnaces have in common the general feature of heat transfer from hot gas
source to a cold sink, and in the past few decades theoretical models of
increasing complexity and power have been developed to aid the designer.[1,2,3]
2.Types of furnaces used in process plant[16]
An industrial furnace or direct fired heater is equipment used to provide heat for
a process or can serve as reactor which provides heats of reaction. Furnace
designs vary as to its function, heating duty, type of fuel and method of
introducing combustion air. However, most process furnaces have some common
features. Fuel flows into the burner and is burnt with air provided from an air
blower. There can be more than one burner in a particular furnace which can be
arranged in cells which heat a particular set of tubes. Burners can also be floor
mounted, wall mounted or roof mounted depending on design. The flames heat
up the tubes, which in turn heat the fluid inside in the first part of the furnace
known as the radiant section or firebox. In this chamber where combustion takes
place, the heat is transferred mainly by radiation to tubes around the fire in the
chamber. The heating fluid passes through the tubes and is thus heated to the
desired temperature. The gases from the combustion are known as flue gas. After
the flue gas leaves the firebox, most furnace designs include a convection section
where more heat is recovered before venting to the atmosphere through the flue
gas stack. (HTF=Heat Transfer Fluid. Industries commonly use their furnaces to
heat a secondary fluid with special additives like antirust and high heat transfer
efficiency. This heated fluid is then circulated round the whole plant to heat
exchangers to be used wherever heat is needed instead of directly heating the
product line as the product or material may be volatile or prone to cracking at the
furnace temperature.)
The radiant section is where the tubes receive almost all its heat by radiation
from the flame. In a vertical, cylindrical furnace, the tubes are vertical. Tubes can
be vertical or horizontal, placed along the refractory wall, in the middle, etc., or
arranged in cells. Studs are used to hold the insulation together and on the wall
of the furnace. The tubes are a distance away from the insulation so radiation can
be reflected to the back of the tubes to maintain a uniform tube wall
temperature. Tube guides at the top, middle and bottom hold the tubes in place.
The convection section is located above the radiant section where it is cooler to
recover additional heat. Heat transfer takes place by convection, and the tubes
are finned to increase heat transfer. The first two tube rows in the bottom of the
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convection section and at the top of the radiant section is an area of bare tubes
(without fins) and are known as the shield section, so named because they are
still exposed to plenty of radiation from the firebox and they also act to shield the
convection section tubes, which are normally of less resistant material from the
high temperatures in the firebox. The area of the radiant section just before flue
gas enters the shield section and into the convection section called the bridge
zone. Crossover is the term used to describe the tube that connects from the
convection section outlet to the radiant section inlet. The crossover piping is
normally located outside so that the temperature can be monitored and the
efficiency of the convection section can be calculated.
In petrochemical industries, furnaces are used to heat petroleum feedstock for
fractionation, thermal cracking, and hightemperature processing. Usually, these
furnaces are fired by oil or gas. They have to be designed to ensure that the fluid
receives the correct amount of heat and has sufficient residence time within hot
zone. While at the same time excess temperatures have been avoided. These
excess temperatures lead to degeneration of the product or damage to the
furnace. The balance is achieved by appropriate disposition of the tubes carrying
the fluid within the furnace, and careful control of firing rate and fluid flow
Calculations are required to determine the fuel consumption and the maximum
temperatures of the tube and walls. Tube temperatures in some plant may be as
high as 900 °C, and combinations of high pressure (e.g., 200 atm) and relatively
high temperatures (e.g., 450 °C) are not uncommon. Process heaters come in
many shapes and sizes; Figures 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 show typical
arrangements.Fig.3.1 is a vertical cylindrical process heater with a band of
vertical tubes in the radiation zone and a bank of horizontal tubes at the outlet
that receive heat mainly by convection. The latter may have fins attached to
enhance heat transfer, except for the base of the furnace and the flames are
vertically oriented. Typical heat transfer rates for the vertical tubes in the
radiation zone are about 50 kW/m2, and the total heat rating is usually in the
range 3 to 60 MW.
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Fig.3.2[1]shows an alternative arrangement, where the tubes are horizontal and
cover not only the vertical walls but also the sloping roof of the “cabin”. Units of
this type are used for a similar range of duty as is the aforementioned vertical
cylinder. Fig.3.3[1] shows the more unusual design for smaller heat loads, where
a single central wall of horizontal tubes is heated on both sides by two sets of
burners set in the base.
3.Furnace heat transfer[18]
A fuelfired furnace consists of a gaseous heat source, a heat sink, and a
refractory enclosure, as illustrated diagrammatically in Fig.3.4.[1] Heat is
transferred to the heat sink by radiation and convection from the hot gases and
by reradiation from the refractory walls. In developing any model of the process,
it is necessary to consider two heat transfer phenomena:
The heat emission from hot gases containing combustion products, i.e. the
heat source.
The heat absorbed by the tubes, taking into account their geometrical
configuration and material properties (the heat sink), composed of primary
heat transfer from hot gases and secondary heat exchange with the
refractory walls.
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3.1.Furnace heat balance
Heat is released in a fuelfired furnace as a result of combustion, and the rate of
heat generation, Qf, is equal to the rate of combustion of fuel, Mf, multiplied by
its lower calorific value, Δhf:
Qf = Mf Δhf...............................(1)
The heat generated by the combustion process appears initially as sensible heat
in the steam of hot gases, consisting of combustion products and excess air,
passing through the furnace at a rate Mg. Part of this heat is transferred to the
heat sink at a rate Qg, part is lost through the furnace walls at a rate Ql, and the
remainder is carried out of the furnace through the exhaust stack as the sensible
heat of the partially cooled combustion products at a rate Qp. As illustrated in
Fig. 3.5[1] the heat balance for this process may be expressed as:
Qf = Qg + Ql +Qp...............................(2)
If there were no heat sink and no losses, all the heat released by combustion
would go into heating the gases produced, which would then attain a
temperature, Tf, known as the adiabatic flame temperature. The adiabatic flame
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temperature is, therefore given by:
Qf = Mgcpg (TfTo)...............................(3)
Where To is the air inlet temperature and cpgis an appropriate average value of
the gas specific heat for the range To to Tf.
In a real furnace the gases do not attain the adiabatic flame temperature, due to
the heat sink and wall losses. For example, neglecting losses but allowing for
heat removal by the sink at a rate of Qg), the theoretical gas temperature, Tg) is
given by
Qf Qg=Mgcpg TgTo...............................(4)
Hence, combining equations (3) and (4)
This equation shows how the gas temperature, Tg is related to the rate of heat
transfer of the sink, Qg, by heat balance. However, Qg is also related to Tg by
the heat transfer characteristics of the hot gas and of the sink. A solution of the
problem requires a combination of these two sets of equations.
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