The prediction of the combustion and heat transfer performance of a refinery heater

Abstract

Predictions have been obtained for the flow, combustion, and heat transfer within a refinery process heater. The flow and combustion in the highly three-dimensional geometry are handled by a numerical solution technique and physical modeling which have an estab;ished two-dimensional predictive history. The radiation transfer is handled by the more recent and very flexible “discrete transfer” technique. Special grids and computational procedures are employed in the interests of computational economy, with the burner region and the main combustion chamber region being handled in separate subcodes. The predictions of the wall heat transfer distribution are compared with measurements and the agreement is remarkably good.