Early-Stage Development of an Advanced Industrial Scale Multipoint Flare Burner

Paper from the AFRC 2013 conference titled Early-Stage Development of an Advanced Industrial Scale Multipoint Flare Burner by Matthew Martin.

The early stage development process and results for a new multipoint ground flare are presented. A rigorous design process was used whereby established tools allow selection and optimization of a robust flare burner design which in turn enables the optimization of the flare system as a whole in a later exercise. Designed experiments were used in conjunction with computational fluid dynamics to gain insight into the operation of a candidate design over a range of operating conditions in order to select the designs which meet or exceed the desired operating to specifications over the widest range of flare gas flows and pressures. Additional information was gathered which gave insight into the trade-offs between competing constraints in the design space. A method of observation is presented that has been used during the physical testing of flare burners which enables the visualization of flame even under adverse conditions. This visualization data can be directly linked to output variables of a CFD model for use in validation exercises. Screening experiments were simulated using a wide variety of different design concepts. The extent of the virtual testing would have been cost prohibitive if performed physically but due to the efficient use of commercially available CFD software a large variety of disparate design concepts are evaluated. A short discussion on some common design modifications is made in the context of the newly available simulation data. A discussion on the potential merits of a final candidate design is presented with a table of results comparing different designs.