Furnace design and

operation

Monitoring performance
Process optimisation

 Energy is a significant cost in any business

 Good energy management contributes directly to the
bottom line
 The first step is to know where energy is used in your
business
 directly as fuel
 process electricity
 heating, lighting and services
Process balances
 A material balance of an industrial process is an exact accounting of
all the materials that enter, leave, accumulate or are depleted in
the course of a given time interval of operation. The material
balance is thus an expression of the law of conservation of mass in
accounting terms. If direct measurements were made of the weight
and composition of each stream entering or leaving a process
during a given time interval, and of the change in material
inventory in the system during that time interval, no calculation
would be required. Seldom is this feasible, and hence calculation of
the unknowns becomes indispensable

Hougen, Watson and Ragatz. Chemical Process Principles. Part 1.

Material & Energy Balances, Wiley, 1966
Mass and energy balances

 What goes in must come out

 but some of it may go round in circles!
 Draw a process flow-sheet
Process flow-sheet

Pump Product
Electricity Flue gases
Preheater
Furnace

Heater
Cooler
Electricity
Fan
Air Fuel
Mass and energy balances

 What goes in must come out

 but some of it may go round in circles!
 Draw a process flow-sheet
 Draw ‘envelopes’ around the areas of the flow-sheet
that are to be studied
Process flow-sheet
envelopes
Pump Product Envelope 2
Electricity
Envelope 1 Flue gases

Preheater

Furnace

Electricity
Heater
Cooler
Electricity
Fan
Air Fuel
Mass and energy balances

 What goes in must come out

 but some of it may go round in circles!
 Draw a process flow-sheet
 Draw ‘envelopes’ around the areas of the flow-sheet
that are to be studied
 Measure mass flows for all lines that cross the envelope
boundaries
Mass balance
Envelope 1
IN kg/s OUT kg/s
Product Product
Air Flue gases
Fuel
Total Total

Envelope 2
IN kg/s OUT kg/s
Product Product
Air Flue gases
Fuel Cooler air
Total Total

<5% error acceptable

Mass and energy balances

 What goes in must come out

 but some of it may go round in circles!
 Draw a process flow-sheet
 Draw ‘envelopes’ around the areas of the flow-sheet
that are to be studied
 Measure mass flows for all lines that cross the envelope
boundaries
 Measure all mass flow temperatures and energy flows
that cross the envelope boundaries
Energy balance
Envelope 1
IN kW OUT kW
Product (sensible) Product (sensible)
Air Product (reaction)
Fuel (sensible) Flue gases
Fuel (nett CV)
Total Total

Envelope 2
IN kW OUT kW
Product (sensible) Product (sensible)
Air Product (reaction)
Fuel Flue gases
Electrical power (pump) Cooler air
Electrical power (heater) Thermal structure loss
Electrical power (fan)
Total Total

<5% error acceptable, look at recycle flows

Mass and energy balances

 If there are recycle flows totally contained within the

boundary of the envelope then these flows will need to
be quantified before a correct energy balance is
achieved
 It is useful to recognise ‘key components’ in the system
when you can not measure everything
 This is a material, all of which passes through the process
without undergoing any physical or chemical change
 A typical example would be nitrogen in the combustion air. You
may only be able to measure the mass flow of air in, and the flue
gas composition out. By proportioning the nitrogen in the flue gas,
the flue gas mass flow can be calculated
Measurement

 The measurement task is not simple, and a kit of

instruments is required
 Gaseous streams
 Air, flue or inert gas flow - Pitot tube and portable manometer
in most suitable section of straight duct
 Fuel or toxic gas flow - in-line flow elements e.g. orifice plate,
turbine meter
 Temperature - Thermocouple (<400oC), suction pyrometer
(>400oC)
 Pressure - Portable manometer or pressure gauge
Measurement
 Liquid streams
 Water, or inert liquid flow -In-line flow meter or ‘bucket and
stopwatch’
 Toxic or hot liquid flow - in-line flow elements e.g. orifice plate,
turbine meter
 Temperature - Thermocouple
 Pressure - Pressure gauge
 Solid streams
 Powder or granular flow -Belt weighter, load cell, calibrated
rotary valve, timed and measured section of belt, chute etc,
 Temperature - Thermocouple
 Surface heat loss
 Temperature - Infra-red pyrometer, line scanner or surface
thermocouple
Measurement

 Samples of each stream must be collected and analysed

to determine their composition
 Flue gas analysis for CO2, CO, O2,, H2O and hydrocarbons (inert
gases by difference)
 Ultimate fuel analysis (C,H,N,O,S), ash and moisture
 Feed and product to determine ‘conversion’
 Outputs from process monitoring equipment can be
used for the mass and energy balance data only if it is
calibrated
Benchmarking

 The mass and energy balances will highlight and

quantify the areas of concern
 Need to know how this compares with best practice so
that you can compare performance against a benchmark
 This is usually expressed in terms of heat used/unit of
product, or cost of energy/unit of product
Benchmarking information

 Similar equipment in your own or competitors

operations
 Suppliers performance data
 Trade and technical journals
 Trade or professional association
 Government sponsored energy efficiency Best
Practice information or targets
Ideal performance

 All heating and cooling processes have an ‘ideal’

temperature-time-enthalpy curve
 If you can follow this curve exactly then you will have
the most energy efficient process possible
 Energy efficient process design should be based on
selecting the right equipment to move along the ideal
curve as closely as possible
The ideal energy plot
Ideal temperature-time-enthalpy plot

50

45

40

35

30

25 Time
20

15

10

900
600

700
600
500

300
400

Energy
300
200

0
100

Temperature
20
How to examine the
options

 You need a ‘model’ of the process which gives an

indication of trends
 The bigger the cost, or more radical the change, the
better the model has to be!
 First off analysis for furnaces, boilers etc. can be done
with a very simple zero-dimensional model
 Remember to consider the rest
of the system
Well stirred furnace model

 Hottel developed and published the basis for a 0-

dimensional furnace radiation model in the 1950’s

 Q 
4

QD  t  1  
4

 d 
Q Dimensionless furnace efficiency
D' Dimensionless firing density
t Ratio of sink temperature to adiabatic flame temperature
d Constant of proportionality = 4/3 for most furnaces (0.01<D'<1)
Well stirred furnace model
1

Radiant section
of tubestills
Power station Decreasing values
boilers of τ

economic boilers

soaking pits
Q'

Open hearth rotary kilns

furnaces and glass
tanks

gas turbines

0.1
0.01 0.1 1 10

D'

0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8

Improved model

 The original model did not account for system losses by

convection or radiation, thus the graph implies that all
furnaces are most efficient at the lowest firing density
(i.e very large furnace volumes)
 An improved version was published by Hottel in the
1970’s which addressed this limitation

 Q 
4
  Q     Q 
4

QD  1    t  LR  1    t o   Lo  1    t o 
4 4

 d  d    d  
 
Improved model
1
Q'

0.1
0.01 0.1 1 10
D'

t= 0.5 t=0.5 L'R=0.02 L'o = 0 to = .125 efficiency

Bigger and better ?

 The more information you need, the more complex the

model becomes
 The more complex the model the longer it takes to get
an answer and less flexible it becomes
 1-D looks at effects along one axis only (e.g.
kilns)
 2-D suitable for axisymetric equipment
 3-D ‘the full Monty’
Boiler example
Example of a mass and heat balance calculation
PROBLEM
A boiler is fired with a bituminous coal having the following proximate analysis :-

Moisture 2.90%
Volatile matter 33.80%
Fixed Carbon 53.10%
Ash 10.20%
100% (as received basis)

The ultimate analysis is known only in part and includes (as received basis) :-

Sulphur 1.10%
Carbon 73.80%

The dry residual ash from the furnace has the following composition :-

Volatile matter 3.10%

Fixed carbon 18%
Ash 78.90%
100%
Temperature 124 C

The dry flue gas analysis is as follows :-

Carbon dioxide 12.10%

Carbon monoxide 0.20%
Oxygen 7.20%
Nitrogen (including argon) 80.50%
Kiln example
Barrie G Jenkins, Consulting Engineers copyright 2003
Barrie G Jenkins, Consulting Engineers, will not accept any responsibility for the use or misuse of the information herin contained
Example mass and heat balance for a rotary kiln

The data for this example is taken from measurements collected during a series of flame trials on a small wet process cement kiln.
A simplified flowsheet is shown below, with the process envelope for the data marked.
Data input cells are marked Calculated value cells are marked Text cells are marked
coal mill air

Air

Flue gases
Slurry feed
process envelope kiln clinker cooler hood milled coal coal mill/fan
coal
anddata
Basic dust taken from site measurements and primary (attritor)
air
Table 1. Clink er analysis from plant

Oxide %
CaO 65.20%
SiO2 19.30%
Al2O3 6.90%
MgO 2.00%
TiO 0.25%
Na2O 0.23%
K2O 0.93%
SO3 1.00%