CFD Simulation of Combustion inside an Industrial Furnace

This paper reports results of a study on a steam reforming furnace at hydrogen plant of Tehran refinery, Iran. A three-dimensional modeling was performed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) code in order to explore various profiles inside the furnace. The codes have the ability of solving continuity and Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations simultaneously employing turbulence, combustion and radiation models. The whole furnace including walls, burners, air channels as well as catalytic tubular reactors was modeled in real scale dimensions. Simulation results could predict hydrodynamics parameters inside the furnace. Profiles of velocity magnitude, temperature as well as turbulence intensity inside both furnace and reactors were predicted. Moreover, temperature, reactant and product components inside the reactor and furnace, especially above the burners were studied. It showed that the burner's performance is considerably affected by its gas injector situation. Thus distribution of the flame in the region close to the burner feedstock is not as suitable as the other regions of the effective flame area. The results were successfully validated with industrial data obtained from hydrogen plant of the Tehran refinery.

Keywords:

CFD , Simulation , Combustion , Furnace , Burner