Oxy-Fuel Burner Characterization: From Laboratory to Industry

Oxygen-fuel firing of furnaces provides numerous benefits to industry such as, reduction of capital investment, fuel savings, and reduction of NOx emission. These benefits are evident in the glass industry where an estimated 15% of the U.S. production has already been converted to oxy-fuel. However, the conversion from conventional air-fuel to oxy-fuel is complicated by the drastic differences between the combustion characteristics such as, flame temperature, momentum, flame chemistry, and heat transfer properties. Successful operation of industrial oxy-fuel furnaces often involves 3-D numerical modeling of the process, but insuring accurate prediction of critical parameters from modeling requires experimental characterization of the burner. For these reasons AIR LIQUIDE has implemented a variety of diagnostics to study industrial-scale oxy-fuel flames. Advanced techniques such as CARS temperature mapping, 2-D Mie scattering for flowfield analysis, emission spectroscopy, and UV imaging are routinely used in the development of new combustion systems. This paper will present recent experimental and modeling results and discuss their implications on the design of oxy-fuel burners.