CIVS Reheating Furnace Research Presented at AFRC Combustion Symposium
On September 17, CIVS Senior Research Engineer Nick Walla presented “CFD Modeling of Burner Retrofits for Hydrogen Fuel and Oxygen Enrichment in a Reheating Furnace” at the AFRC Industrial Combustion Symposium in San Antonio, TX. Co-authors include CIVS Graduate Research Assistants Veronica Pitt-Payne and Sohail Hannure, CIVS Director for Operations Armin Silaen, Industry Collaborator from Gerdau Kevin Kondrat, Industry Collaborators from Linde Rafat Hirmiz and Joe Maiolo and CIVS Director Chenn Zhou. Gerdau and Linde are member companies of the SMSVC.
Like any industry, steel producers adapt their processes to meet customer needs or to take advantage of new technologies. However, with these changes comes the risk of production interruptions. One such component of steel making that is often evaluated for improvement is the reheating furnace, especially when it comes to the reduction of emissions. Reheating furnaces are a significant part of the carbon emissions involved in the steel-making process, but are also critical to continued steady production rates of any steel-making facility.
The usage of numerical studies, such as computational fluid dynamics, can enable exploration of design and process changes to identify improvements without introducing risks of process interruption. To this end, this work uses CFD to explore two forms of retrofit for the Gerdau Special Steel facility in Monroe, Michigan, where a planned demonstration of hydrogen fuel and oxygen enrichment in the reheating furnace will take place.
Baseline flameless burner performance is compared with burner retrofit via internal lances for H2 and O2 within the burner silhouette and with external lancing of the same. Metrics compared are changes to combustion profiles, peak temperatures, emissions and potential interference from internal furnace features.
The symposium is a forum for combustion professionals, including engineers, researchers and industrial practitioners to share research, developments and practical solutions in industrial combustion. It emphasizes applied technology. Examples include real industrial settings, case studies, burner designs, emissions, safety, performance and retrofits.