Abstract
Open pile burning (OPB) forest residues have been limited due to several concerns, including atmospheric pollution, risk of fire spread, and weather conditions restrictions. Air Curtain Burner (ACB) systems could be an alternative to OPB and can avoid some of the negative effects that may result from OPB. The main objective was to compare the burning consumption rates and costs of two types of ACB machines, the S-220 and BurnBoss. In addition, we tested a hand-pile burning (HPB) consumption rate for a comparison with BurnBoss unit. The S-220’s burning consumption rates ranged between 5.7 and 6.8 green metric ton (GmT)/scheduled machine hour (SMH) at a cost between US $12.8 and US $10.8/GmT, respectively. Costs were 70% higher when using the BurnBoss unit. Burning residue consumption rates and cost of disposal were considerably different: they were highly dependent on machine size, species, and fuel age of forest residues. Particularly, BurnBoss test burned over 40% more than HPB method and produced clean burn by airflow. The results from this study suggest that ACBs can be a useful tool to dispose of forest residues piled in many forests areas with less concerns of air quality and fire escape risks.
Highlights
Forest residues include tree tops, limbs, and other tree parts generated from forest operations and can provide opportunities for production of bioenergy and bioproducts such as briquettes or biochar [1,2,3]
The S-220 unit was capable of burning rates of 5.7 to 6.8 green metric ton (GmT)/scheduled machine hour (SMH) at a cost of US $12.8 and $10.8/GmT, respectively (Table 3)
These burning operations indicated that combustion of softwood residues was 15% more efficient than both materials. During these trial tests, burning consumption rates strongly depended on the species
Summary
Forest residues include tree tops, limbs, and other tree parts generated from forest operations and can provide opportunities for production of bioenergy and bioproducts such as briquettes or biochar [1,2,3]. It is often financially unviable to use forest residues due to high costs of collection and transportation, and low market price [5,6]. Leaving large piles of forest residues near houses or within public parks have been a concern due to high risk of fire hazard and other forest management issues (i.e., growing and rehabilitation). For this reason, open pile burning (OPB) has been widely used in the Western. U.S to dispose of forest residues, to reduce wildfire hazard, and improve forest and productivity [7,8]. This forest residues disposal method has been extensively used as it provides a cost-effective option for disposal of forest residues [9,10]
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