EnginSoft - Conference Abstracts

EnginSoft International Conference 2009
CAE Technologies for Industry

CFD simulation of combustion systems for steel reheating furnaces

Battaglia Valerio - CSM, Centro Sviluppo Materiali
Malfa Enrico - CSM, Centro Sviluppo Materiali
Fantuzzi Massimiliano - Tenova LOI Italimpianti

Abstract

The market requirements for a new Ultra Low NOx burner have driven Tenova to start in 2002 the FlexyTech research program in order to definitely lower NOx emission of steel reheating furnace equipped with central recuperator and traditional flame burners through application of flameless technology. In this frame extensive CFD simulations performed by CSM allowed reducing field tests and time to market for the new burners.
In the development process of new burner, three aspects in particular were objects of Computational Fluid Dynamic analysis:

• conceptual design: simulation of different configurations before prototype stage.
  
• experimental data interpolation: simulation of the burner test and comparison of the results with experimental data, for deep understanding of combustion phenomena.
  
• burner scaling: to provide a reliable method of scaling to lager or smaller applications.

Moreover the CFD approach developed for single burner simulation has been extend at the reheating furnace equipped with several burners in the frame of the CO2Red project carried out with the financial grant from the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS)) of the European Community. The objective of the modelling activity has been the set-up of a tool able to reproduce the fluid dynamic inside the furnace zones, the flames interaction and the heat flux distribution both on the furnace walls and on the steel charge in order to evaluate the effects of different combustion system and reheating furnace operative conditions. The paper describes the CFD approach adopted in the design process of new burners and the follow-up CFD simulations of complete reheating furnace.