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Show maximizing efficiency and for minimizing catastrophic tube failures and other problems such as tube-side coking of heated crude. Inasmuch as lower quality and alternative feedstocks and fuels are used in refineries worldwide, energy conservation and versatility of combustion equipment are also important. Heat release profiling is one of the tools used to improve furnace efficiency and detennine the ability to fire alternate fuels under various conditions in furnaces, while maintaining operating safety. Reduced maintenance and downtime are always important issues in refrnery operation. Research on materials of construction, especially for high-temperature refractories, is important to improve refractory lifetime. Some respondents considered research to improve control of air emissions to be very important. Others considered this less important than perfonnance of the combustion equipment to perform its primary task such as heat production, heat transfer, steam generation, or power generation. The importance of flame safety and stability was also inconsistent but did rank high enough to be placed in a priority position. This topic was considered important for combustion equipment using mass burn or multiple burner arrays, but was less important for other types of combustion equipment. 4.2 Steel Industry The steel industry is divided into two major segments: (1) large, integrated producers that smelt iron ores to molten iron in blast furnaces and refine the iron in basic oxygen furnaces, and (2) nonintegrated producers that rely primarily on scrap for their raw materials. The steel industry has undergone drastic restructuring over the last decade by investing heavily in continuous casting, adopting new management styles, closing many outmoded plants, improving quality, and boosting productivity at a 7% annual rate since 1984. Such changes helped 1993 industry shipments reach their highest level since 1981, while import market penetration was at its lowest since 1980. Also, the industry returned to profitability during 1993-94 after sustaining a cumulative deficit of $3 .5 billion between 1989-92. Annual energy use in the steel industry is about 1.7 quads, or about 21 million Btu/ton of finished steel. The industry spent $4.8 billion on purchased energy in 1991-8.7% of its value of shipments. Coal supplies about 50% of the industry's energy, and natural gas supplies about 250/0. Electricity is the dominant energy source among scrapbased minimills. The main priorities of the steel industry are production capacity, customer service, quality, environmental control, and cost. Use of energy in the production of steel therefore is a matter of concern. Modernization programs that improve production, quality, or both will frequently improve fuel use and reduce the overall Btu/ton of crude steel produced. Reduction of fuel conslilllption also has a positive effect on the environment. Prime examples of projects that improved capacity and quality and aITected major fuel economies are the installation of continuous casters and the new generation of walking beam reheat furnaces recently installed in many steel plants. There is an ongoing concern that many of the combustion processes used in producing steel involve the generation of carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, wl\vanted byproducts. The Clean Air Act of 1990 provides impetus to improve combustion efficiency and minimize the generation of unwanted emissions. A reduction of fuel consumption is viewed as a way to achieve significant reductions in the generation of these undesirable byproducts. The reduction of fuel consumption in various steel producing processes help achieve this goal. The desire of the industry is to have research efforts directed toward combustion process improvements that will achieve significant tangible improvements in the near ternl. Projects that are likely to stay in the laboratory for five to ten years before commercial use is initiated are not of great interest. The projects discussed, in nonprioritized order, below are considered possible application research work. The succeeding sections were developed in discussions with two integrated steel companies, two burner manufacturers, one furnace builder, one oxygen supplier, and industry energy experts. 7 |