A Thermal Model for Reburning Fuel Injectors in Glass Furnaces

A quasi-steady multi-mode heat-transfer model for retraining fuel injectors in glass furnaces has been developed that predicts the effect of geometry, furnace heat source and heat sink temperatures, radial and axial injector wall conduction, and coolant flow rate on the injector wall temperature distribution. The model imposes a radiation boundary condition at the outlet tip of the injector, which acts as a heat source. A parametric study has been conducted to investigate effects that the furnace gas temperature, reburning methane fuel and purge-air flow rates, and furnace wall temperature have on the injector wall temperature distribution. For nominal operating conditions, highly nonlinear temperature distributions were observed throughout the injector. Operation with methane as the coolant produced an extremely large temperature gradient near the injector tip that could cause excessive thermal stresses in the injector wall. The results also showed that nominal injector operating conditions should prevent alkali deposition at the injector tip and produce injector/metallic disconnect temperatures well below the initial deformation temperature for stainless steel.