Numerical Analysis of an Inverse Boundary Design Problem of a 3-D Radiant Furnace with a 3-D Design Object

Abstract

For the uniform thermal conditions, the present study investigates the constraints on the size of a 3-D design object (DO) that can be placed inside a 3-D radiant furnace. To cover a wide range of the dimensions of the DO, 29 models are considered. Radiation element method by ray emission model (REM2) is used to calculate the radiative information. The objective function is minimized using the micro-genetic algorithm (MGA). Estimated heat flux distributions on the DOs are compared with the desired uniform heat flux distribution. The suitability of a DO is decided on the basis of the maximum allowable deviation of the estimated heat flux. For a given power range of the panel heaters, study has also been made for different values of the desired uniform heat flux. For a realistic heating process for uniform thermal conditions, this study provides a guideline for a priori knowing the maximum possible size of a DO that can be processed inside a radiant furnace.