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Furnace Design
Lecture Objectives
After this lecture, you should:
Be familiar with correct operating practice of industrial furnaces, with emphasis on: Operation principles Role of burners Air supply and flue gas removal Performance monitoring Be familiar with the principal control configurations implemented for furnace regulation Be able to design the radiant section of an industrial furnace
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Furnace Design
Furnaces
Distillation furnace (sig. C6 verso) Author: Brunschwig, Hieronymus, ca. 1450-ca. 1512 Title: Kleines Distillierbuch
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Furnaces
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Furnace Design
Applications
1. Vacuum charge heater
2. Reformer Furnace 3. Crude furnace 4. Pyrolysis furnace 5. Visbreaker furnace 6. Hydrocracker furnace 7. Air heater 8. Oil heater 9. Others
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Operation principles
Process Fluid: Fluid characteristics of the process fluids should be considered before designing a heater. For example, very high viscosity fluids have tendency to attain very high film temperature, as the fluid in the film does not readily mix with the bulk fluid. This results in uneven distribution of heat in the fluid and develops hot spots, where vaporization and degradation occurs. Heat Duty: Total furnace heat duty is the sum of heat transferred to all process streams, including auxiliary services such as steam super heaters. Amount of heat duty affects the selection of type and configuration of heater.
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Turndown:
Set by process considerations. Turndown rates of 60% can be used without falling below mass velocity rates needed to prevent excessive coking rates. Burner turndown is a function of burner design and the type of fuel. Burner turndown does not normally affect furnace turndown.
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Furnace Design
Usually made from carbon steel, alloy steel or stainless steel pipes. Tubing material is selected based on service life, corrosion resistance and cost. Allowable stresses in the tube material decrease with increasing temperatures, therefore, higher tube temperatures require thicker tubewalls or higher alloy-content. Carbon steel is the most widely used material for heater tubing where corrosion resistance is relatively mild.
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Burners
Burners start and maintain combustion in the firebox by mixing fuel and air due to fuel gas pressure and air draft.
The mixing of fuel and combustion air occurs in the gas phase, so, all liquid-fuel burners use atomizing devices to break up the liquid mass into micron-size droplets. When steam is not available for atomizing and oil is the only fuel available for firing then air atomization or mechanical atomization can be used
The number of burners depends on the size of the heater and the heat duty to be supplied.
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Furnace Design
Burners
Oil Lance Assembly
Atomizer
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Furnace Design
Burners Contd
Burners should be selected to provide stable combustion with the following characteristics: - Ability to handle wide range of fuels. - Predictable flame patterns for all fuels and firing rates. - Good turndown ratio between maximum and minimum firing rates.
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Furnace Design
Natural Draft (NF)- air is drawn by the draft created by the stack
Forced Draft (FD) - air is supplied by a centrifugal fan (blower) Induced Draft (ID)- flue gases are driven out by a centrifugal fan
FD Fan
Cold Air Preheater
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ID Fan
Furnace Design
Excess Air
Excess air is expressed as a percentage of the theoretical quantity of air required for complete combustion of the fuel. Typically, oil fired forced draft heaters and gas fired natural draft heaters need about 10-15% excess air where as oil/combination fire natural draft heaters need 15-20% excess air. Lowering the excess air helps in reducing NOx emissions from the fired heaters and also minimizes heat losses with the flue gases. On the other hand, low values of excess air cause heavy smoke
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Furnace Design
Performance Monitoring
Most fired heater operations can be optimized to improve efficiency and save money. Some of the common problems observed with fired heater operations are uneven flow distribution in various passes, high excess air operation, high stack temperature, fouled convection section, flame impingement and over firing. Optimizing the performance of a fired heater requires close monitoring of key parameters on both process side as well as combustion side.
4)
5) 6)
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Furnace Design
FYI - NOx
Since 1970, EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has been tracking six principal pollutants: Carbon monoxide (CO) Lead Nitrogen oxides, Particulate matter Sulfur oxides Volatile organic compounds.
Two of the most common oxides of nitrogen are: NO and NO2. In stationary source, combustion approximately 90% of NOx formed is NO. After NO leaves a stack, in the presence of sunlight, ozone, and volatile organic compounds , it becomes NO2, which (in extreme cases) appears as a reddish-brown plume.
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FYI - NOx
How is NOx formed? Thermal fixation of atmospheric nitrogen and oxygen in the combustion process. The formation rate of thermal NOx is dependent on the reaction temperature, the local stoichiometric, and the residence time. Thermal NOx is most readily influenced by the combustion system. Breakdown of CH portions of methane and other hydrocarbons in the fuel and their subsequent combination with nitrogen in the air. The rate of formation of NOx is dominated by combustion conditions and can be suppressed by modifying the combustion process. Both thermal and fuel NOx are promoted by rapid mixing of oxygen with the fuel. Thermal NOx is greatly increased by long residence time at high temperature.
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
PI
BSLL
Flame detector
Furnace Design
SAFETY SYSTEM FOR MAIN GAS TRAIN Vent valve (FO) PSLL PSHH Fuel FC valve
TSHH
PI
Furnace Design
PROCESS-RELATED SAFETY SYSTEMS It is not obvious that we should automatically shut off the process feed in the event of a failure. Depressurization valve (FL)
Why?
Furnace Design
FSHH
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This control system ensures that the fuel/air ratio in the furnace is Furnace Design always below the explosion limit
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
Where, Ntube = Number of tubes Stube = Tube spacing, ft Ltube = Effective tube length, ft
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
(4) Aw AR aAcp
Aw - Effective refractory area, ft2
AR - Total refractory area, ft2 aAcp - Equivalent cold plane area, ft2 The total refractory area, AR, is simply the total of the refractory area exposed to the radiant section of the heater.
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
For a radiant section that is considered "well mixed", this temperature is assumed to be equal to the temperature leaving the radiant section, i.e., the bridgewall temperature. For most applications, this is an acceptable assumption. Still there are exceptions to be aware of.
Tube wall temperature depends on the temperature of the process fluid and its transfer coefficient inside the tube, the thermal resistance of the tube wall, the heat flux, and the fouling. In purpose to simplify the calculations it is convenient to set this temperature ( as a constant ) prior to the calculations.
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(5) Qc hc At (Tg - Tw )
Where, Qc - Convection heat transfer, Btu/hr hc - Film heat transfer coefficient, Btu/hr-ft2- R At - Area of the tubes in bank, ft2 Tg - Effective gas temperature in firebox, R Tw - Average tube wall temperature, R
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a. For horizontal tube heater: For small heaters , hc = 1.5 For multiple tube cells , hc = 2.8. b. Vertical heaters: For L/D < 2 , hc = 2 For L/D > 2, hc = 3
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Furnace Design
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But What happens when a fuel gases contain many more components and burning is carried out in air rather than in pure oxygen ?
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Furnace Design
Qout - Sensible heat in flue gas leaving radiant section, Btu/hr From the flue gas composition, the overall enthalpy of the flue gas at a specific temperature can be calculated. These enthalpies can be obtained from the curves.
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
a 0.915
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Furnace Design
30
Therefore:
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Furnace Design
Aw AR aAcp
Where: AR is total refractory area, i.e. the total of the refractory area exposed to the radiant section of the heater.
AR 2 WL 2 WH 2HL Exitarea 2 8ft 26ft 2 8ft (10ft 4 ") 2 (10ft 4 ") 26ft 42ft 2 1076.64ft 2
= 8.6ft
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Furnace Design
0.47
P L
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Furnace Design
0.73
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Furnace Design
Assuming a small heater with one tube cell, hc=1.5, heat absorbed by radiant tubes by convection can be calculated:
(5) Qc hc At (Tg - Tw ) 1.5 1102.7KBtu /hr
Note: for direct fired heaters, the average flux rate should be in the range 6-18 KBtu/hr-ft2.
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Furnace Design
For the given example, the combustion air is at 60 F, so Qair drops out of the equation. The fuel is gas at 60 F, so there is no atomization and Qother also drops out . The furnace has no shield tubes, so Qs drops out also, reducing eq. 6 to:
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Furnace Design
Where :
W Fuel flowrate , lb / hr fuel LV Lower heating value of the fuel , Btu / lb fuel
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Furnace Design
Where :
R Ai r to fuel rati o ai r /fuel
E Enthalpy of flue gas , Btu / lb flue gas
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Furnace Design
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Furnace Design
Finding the fuel rate consumption provides the heat flow released
Lecture Summary
This lecture has covered:
Correct operating practice of industrial furnaces, with emphasis on: Operation principles Role of burners Air supply and removal Performance monitoring Principal control configurations implemented for furnace regulation Design of the radiant section of an industrial furnace
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Furnace Design