A Numerical Study on the Efficiency of an Industrial Furnace for Oxygen Combustion Conditions

After a reheating furnace installation, the modification of the size and the heat capacity is very difficult. Therefore, the development of design package tool is required for the computation on the correct specifications before the design and the installation. Prior to development of the design tool, a module that calculates the amount of heat loss of each part according to the specifications for determining the thermal efficiency of a continuous heating furnace was developed and applied to the oxy-fuel industrial furnace. Through this, the effects of fuel type, oxygen fraction and recirculation on the efficiency of the furnace of which the output is 110Ton/hour were analyzed. In oxy-fuel combustion condition, the efficiency was 15% higher than air combustion conditions. With the using COG(Coke Oven Gas) instead of LNG, the efficiency was slightly increased. In the air combustion condition, the efficiency was increased about 33% with the preheated air. But, in oxy-fuel condition, the amount of exhaust gas was reduced, so the efficiency was increased about 7%.