Combustion tests on an industrial glass-melting furnace

Abstract

Local gas temperatures, local concentrations of major gas species and incident wall heat fluxes were measured in a large end-port, fuel-fired regenerative furnace for manufacture of glass containers, with a nominal output of 90 t d −1 of soda-lime glass and a specific energy consumption of 5.9 GJ t −1. Two different operating conditions were studied to investigate the effect of furnace throughput and air:fuel ratio on the heat transfer characteristics of the furnace. The measurements were performed through inspection ports in the furnace and quantified its cyclic operation as well as the three-dimensional nature of the heat transfer processes. The local wall heat fluxes were in the range 250–300 kW m −1, with maximum variations along each wall of 20%. The maximum temperatures in the flame and in the exhaust gases were 1660 and 1540 °C respectively, the latter associated with 2% excess O 2. The maximum measured concentrations of carbon monoxide varied between 5 vol.% in the flame and 0.5 vol.% at the exit of the combustion chamber. The nitrogen oxide levels were ∼ 4000 ppmv. The results provide the necessary detail to allow the validation of numerical procedures to interpolate and extrapolate the experimental information.