The influence of furnace design on the NO formation in high temperature processes

Abstract High temperature processes produce high NO x emissions due to their elevated working temperatures. Strong regulations for emissions of pollutants [1] from industrial plants lead the operators to optimize their furnaces. In this paper a three-dimensional mathematical model for turbulent flow and combustion on the basis of turbulence-chemistry interactions and radiative heat transfer taking into account spectral effects of surrounding walls and combustion gases is described. The transport equation for radiative intensity was split into different wavelength ranges. A block-structured finite volume grid with local refinements was used to solve the governing equations. The calculation domain is subdivided into a number of subdomains which are linked within the solver based on the message passing interface (MPI) library. Computed distributions of velocity, temperature, species distribution and heat fluxes are given. Results of a parametric study in a producing horseshoe furnace by increasing the height of the furnace with regard to NO x concentration distributions are presented.