Physical and mathematical modelling of gas-fired glass melting furnaces with regard to NO-formation

The increasing demand in quality, efficiency, energy conservation and the environmental issues drive the operators of high temperature processes to optimize their furnaces. Especially the glass manufacturing industry with their high working temperatures from about 1850 K to more than 1950 K and high air preheating temperatures of above 1480 K will produce high NOx-concentrations in the flue gas if no primary measures are taken. Considering the three different paths for NO-formation it is obvious that increased thermal NO is responsible for higher emissions. The German environmental regulations on air ''TA Luft'' requires a maximum value of 500 mg/mN3 in the flue gas for most of the combustion processes but for glass melting furnaces a temporary regulation of 1200 mg/mN3 and further on to 800 mg/mN3 is valid. Due to economical reasons the level of secondary measures is to be minimized thus the main objective of research is to reduce the NOx-emissions via primary measures. The design of the furnace is very important due to its strong influence on the distribution of velocity and species. That consequently affects the temperature field and the heat transfer to the load and further on the emissions. For the understanding of the processes within these furnaces numerical simulations, which are successfully validated with experiments, can give valuable indications to optimize furnace design for the reduction of NOx-emissions. The glass melting furnace modelled here is a regenerative horseshoe furnace fired with natural gas. Combustion air is preheated within the regenerator onto a level of temperature of 1650 K. (author)