International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Efficiency analysis of air-fuel and oxy-fuel combustion in a reheating

furnace
Sang Heon Han a,⇑, Yeon Seung Lee b,⇑, J.R. Cho b, Kyun Ho Lee c
a
NEXTfoam Co., 32, Digital-ro 9 gil, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul 08512, Republic of Korea
b
Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, Hongik University, 2639, Sejong-ro, Jochiwon-eup, Sejong 30016, Republic of Korea
c
Department of Aerospace Engineering Sejong University, 209 Neungdong-ro, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study numerically verified the enhanced efficiency of a steel reheating furnace when applying oxy-
Received 27 August 2017 fuel combustion instead of air-fuel combustion. Only radiation heat transfer was considered to analyze
Received in revised form 20 December 2017 the periodically transient slab heating for an axial-fired furnace. The radiation field was computed with-
Accepted 22 December 2017
out flow field calculation by dividing the entire furnace into ten subzones of which the temperatures
were calculated by taking the overall heat balance for all the subzones. A total of five cases, 2 for air-
fuels and 3 for oxy-fuels, was analyzed to compare the slab heating behavior between air-fuel and
Keywords:
oxy-fuel combustion. The modified 5-gas WSGGM was used for oxy-fuel combustion cases to fulfill the
Reheating furnace
Oxy-fuel combustion
characteristics of CO2 and H2O enriched medium, while ordinary 4-gas WSGGM was used for air-fuel
Efficiency combustion cases. From the efficiency analysis for the total of five cases, it was predicted that oxy-fuel
Radiative slab heating combustion gave an approximately 50% enhancement in efficiency compared to air-fuel combustion.
Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In an integrated steel mill, 80% of annual CO2 emissions are pro-
duced by the melting of ore while the remainder is mostly pro-
duced in the heating slabs or billets in reheating furnaces.
Because the steel mill industry is the third largest CO2 emissions
sector in South Korea [1], there is a compelling case to be made
for steel mill companies to take necessary actions to reduce CO2
emissions in the near future. As is typically found in other thermal
plants, the use of renewable energy sources can appear to offer a
suitable choice for CO2 reduction in reheating furnaces. However,
large integrated steel mills produce an abundant amount of by-
product gases, which are sufficient to run their own energy facili-
ties. Such steel mills do not need a renewable energy source, and
it is, therefore, desirable to develop an alternative approach.
Reduction of CO2 emissions from reheating furnaces can be
achieved by enhancing the thermal efficiency. This can be achieved
by a reduction of heat loss through the furnace walls, heat recovery
of exhaust gases, complete combustion, a redesign of the geometric
configuration of reheating furnaces, and oxy-fuel combustion.
However, the first four methods are well developed. The heat loss
⇑ Corresponding authors at: NEXTfoam CO., 32, Digital-ro 9 gil, Geumcheon-gu,
Seoul 08512, Republic of Korea.
E-mail addresses: shhan@nextfoam.co.kr (S.H. Han), yslee132@hongik.ac.kr
(Y.S. Lee).
through furnace walls can be managed to <3% of total heat input
[2,3]. A recuperator is used to elevate the combustion air temper-
ature using the heat from exhaust gases. Recuperators and burners
are currently well developed and show only marginal potential for
upgrade. Highly efficient burners can attain almost complete
combustion.
Because more than 90% of heat transfer to slabs or billets occurs
by radiation in reheating furnaces [4,5], heating efficiency can be
enhanced by oxy-fuel combustion [6]. The oxy-fuel combustion is
free from the burden of heating up nitrogen and can give higher
flame temperatures compared to ordinary air-fuel combustion
[7]. In addition, oxy-fuel combustion produces a more radiatively
active medium by removing a non-participating component,
nitrogen. It has been reported that oxy-fuel combustion (OFC) is
competitive to air-fuel combustion (AFC) including compensation
for the cost of oxygen generation. However, the reports issued have
been mostly from commercial stakeholders, such as Linde Gas and
Praxair. Including not only the cost saved in reheating the furnace
but also the cost of oxygen generation, it is likely that OFC is less
effective, or only slightly more effective, if any, than AFC.
However, OFC may play a key role in reheating furnaces in the
near future, as a part of three CCS (CO2 capture and storage)
processes [8,9]: pre-combustion, OFC, and post-combustion. Pre-
combustion is not worth consideration in a reheating furnace.
When comparing the cost between OFC and post-combustion, it
is clear that OFC has a disadvantage at the stage before CO2

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.12.110
0017-9310/Ó 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370
Nomenclature
ak k-th absorption band, m1
be;k;j polynomial coefficient for the WSGGM model
f mass flow rate factor
h specific enthalpy, J=kg
I radiation intensity, W=ðm2  srÞ
m_ mass flow rate per unit depth, kg=s=m
qR radiative heat flux, W=m2
Q rate of heat transfer or heat generation per unit depth,
W=m
!
r position vector, m
!
s unit direction vector, m
T temperature, K
separation and an advantage at the CO2 separation stage. If the cost
of oxygen generation is fully compensated (or nearly compen-
sated) by the enhanced efficiency as in reheating furnaces, OFC is
absolutely superior to post-combustion.
Kanniche et al. [8] suggested that each CCS process has its own
optimum application part and OFC should be used together with a
pulverized coal boiler (PC); many OFC studies are focused on PC
[10–12]. Buhre et al. reviewed various issues for OFC: heat transfer,
environmental issues, gaseous emissions, ash-related issues, igni-
tion and flame stability. Wall et al. reported the current interna-
tional status of the technology, contributions of current
demonstrations, and a roadmap for commercial deployment. Xiong
et al. carried out a detailed thermo-economic cost analysis for a
600 MW pulverized-coal-fired power plant operating under an
OFC environment.
In 1990, OFC was first introduced into a steel-reheating furnace
at Timken by Linde gas. Advanced technologies including the so-
called flameless combustion, direct-flame impingement, and
reheating furnaces operating under OFC environment were
adopted later [13–17]. Murakami et al. [18] carried out OFC in a
small scale furnace with coke oven gas (COG). Ebeling et al. [19]
presented technical and economic considerations for using OFC
in steel-reheating furnaces and provided general guidelines as to
when OFC is an appropriate alternative. Praxair has investigated
the application of flameless oxy-fuel combustion as applied to
reheating furnaces [20]. Oliveira et al. [21] performed a cost anal-
ysis for variations of preheating temperature in an OFC reheating
furnace.
This study has compared the thermal efficiency between AFC
and OFC in an axial-fired reheating furnace. To analyze the effi-
ciency, a numerical approach was adopted to estimate the radia-
tion heat transfer into the slab generated by the combustion gas
and to predict the periodically transient behavior of slabs. Based
on the author’s previous work [3], only radiation was considered
for the slab heating, and radiation was accessed by splitting the
Fig. 1. Configuration of the furnace.
1365
Z ij subzone ij
Greek symbols
xe;k emissivity weighting factor for the k-th gray gas
X solid angle
Subscripts
b boundary or black body
i, j, ij indices
k index for gray gas
w wall
furnace into several subzones without flow-field calculation.
Because the standard 4-gas WSGGM (weighted sum of gray gas
model) [22] is known to give an error in the case of an oxygen-
enriched medium [23], a modified 5-gas WSGGM, as suggested
by Johansson et al. [23], was used in the calculation for OFC.
2. Mathematical formulation
2.1. Overall heat balance equations
Fig. 1 shows the schematic frontal view of the furnace of this
study. It is 14.1 m deep and equipped with 51 axial burners: 24
in the lower part and 27 in the upper part. It contains 31 slabs
and a new slab is inserted from the left side wall. Each slab has
the width of 1.16 m and thickness of 0.23 m. The furnace is divided
into three zones: preheating, heating, and soaking zones. The
entire furnace is divided into 10 subzones to specify the tempera-
ture distribution of the gas medium and furnace wall. The axial
burners are installed in the fuel feed subzones - Z11, Z12, Z13, Z21,
Z22, and Z23. The following assumptions are introduced to analyzed
the heating characteristics of the reheating furnace.
I. Fuel is fully combusted inside each feeding subzone.
I. The combustion gas flow of the lower part does not enter the
upper part until it reaches Z15.
II. Wall and medium temperature of each subzone remain
constant.
III. All the slabs are same in material, shape, and insertion
interval.
IV. It takes no time for slabs to move to next position.
The mass and energy balance of an arbitrary subzone, Zij, satisfy
the following conservation equations.
m _ ij;in þ m
_ ij;out ¼ m _ ij;fuel ð1Þ
1366 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370

Table 1
Composition of mixtures (%).

Species H2 CH4 C2H6 CO CO2 O2 H2O N2

COG 56.4 26.6 2.9 8.4 3.1 0.3 0.0 2.3
Flue gas (Air-fuel) 0 0 0 0 0.08 0.01 0.21 0.70
Flue gas (Oxy-fuel) 0 0 0 0 0.26 0.03 0.70 0.01

Table 2
Fuel feed rate per unit depth (m2/h).

Z11 Z13 Z15 Z21 Z23 Z25 Total (f)

Air-fuel I 155.4 416.8 478.6 138.6 372.6 439.7 2001.6 (1.2)
Air-fuel II 207.2 555.7 638.1 184.8 496.8 586.2 2668.8 (1.54)
Oxy-fuel I 129.5 347.3 398.8 115.5 310.5 366.4 1667.9 (1.0)
Oxy-fuel II 142.5 382.0 438.7 127.1 341.6 403.0 1834.8 (1.1)
Oxy-fuel III 155.4 416.8 478.6 138.6 372.6 439.7 2001.6 (1.2)

Table 3 the k-th gray gas emissivity with absorption coefficient, ak , and par-
Properties of slabs. tial pressure-path length product, PS. The weighting factor, xe;k , can
be expressed as a temperature dependent polynomial of order J  1:
Temperature [K] Conductivity Specific heat Emissivity
[W/(mK)] [J/(kgK)]
X
J
T < 473 60.57 504.0 0.5 xe;k ¼ be;k;j T j1 ð6Þ
473 < T < 673 51.17 577.9 0.5 j¼1
673 < T < 873 41.74 712.3 0.5
873 < T < 1073 34.04 892.1 0.5 where be;k;j is referred to as the emissivity gas temperature polyno-
1073 < T < 1273 28.08 730.8 0.6
mial coefficient. Refer to Refs. [22,23] for ak and be;k;j of WSGGM
1273 < T 29.81 672.0 0.6
models used in this study; 4-gas ordinary WSGGM for AFC and 5-
gas modified WSGGM for OFC.
The total intensity can be expressed as the sum of all the gray
mij;out hij;out ¼ Q ij;comb þ mij;in hij;in þ mij;fuel hij;fuel  Q ij;skid  Q ij;boundary gas intensities, Ik .
ð2Þ
X
K
I¼ Ik ð7Þ
Q ij;skid ¼ cij;skid ðQ ij;comb þ mij;in hij;in þ mij;fuel hij;fuel Þ ð3Þ k¼0

m _ ij;in , and m
_ ij;out , m _ ij;fuel are the rates of mass outflow, mass inflow,
and fuel feed of the ij subzone, respectively. hij;out , hij;in , hij;fuel ,
Q ij;comb , and Q ij;boundary represent the specific enthalpy of outflow,
specific enthalpy of inflow, specific enthalpy of fuel and oxidizer,
combustion heat, and radiative heat loss though the boundary of
the ij subzone, respectively. A constant coefficient, cij;skid , is intro-
duced to evaluate the skid loss. The skid loss is determined by the
product of the skid loss coefficient and energy added to the sub-
zone. The skid loss coefficient is 0.12 in this study.
The medium temperature of each subzone is obtained by bal-
ancing Eqs. (1)–(3). Wall temperature of each subzone is deter-
mined by directly applying wall boundary conditions.
qRw ¼ kw ðT w  T w;outside Þ=L
kw ; T w;outside , and L represent thermal conductivity of furnace wall,
ambient temperature outside the furnace, thickness of the furnace
wall, which are 1.06 W=ðm  KÞ, 343 K, and 0.3 m, respectively.
2.2. Radiation heat transfer
In WSGGM, radiation intensity is grouped based on absorption
! The grid size for the entire domain is 350  30 and all slabs
band. The RTE for a gray band intensity, Ik , at any position, r , along
! have the same grid size of 13  6. The solid angle is divided into
a path, s , through an absorbing, emitting and non-scattering med-
ium is given by [22,24]:
! !
dIk ð r ; s Þ ! ! !
¼ ak Ik ð r ; s Þ þ ak xk Ib ð r Þ
ds
Here, ak is the absorption coefficient of the medium, Ib is the black
body intensity, xe;k denotes the emissivity weighting factor for the
k-th gray gas based on gas temperature. The bracketed quantity is
In this study, Ik is solved with FVM radiation solving method for
gray medium [25–27] in which the total solid angle (= 4p steradi-
ans) is split into finite directions.
3. Results and discussion
COG is used for the fuel of the reheating furnace. Table 1 shows
the typical compositions for COG, which has a combustion heat of
18.75 MJ/N m3. The fuel and oxidizer are fed into the furnace at the
temperature of 300 K and 693 K, respectively. The oxidizer is fed
into each fuel inlet port in 6% excess. The compositions of flue
gas for the two different combustion modes are also specified in
Table 1.
ð4Þ
A total of 5 cases are analyzed in this study and their fuel-
feeding conditions are specified in Table 2. The fuel-feeding pro-
portion of each fuel-feed subzone is the same for all five cases.
The mass flow rate factor, f, is introduced to specify the fuel-feed
rate for each case using Oxy-fuel I as the reference. Air-fuel I and
Oxy-fuel III are set to have the same fuel-feed rate of f = 1.2 for
an intuitive comparison between the two different combustion
modes.
4  12 sections (azimuthal and polar directions) for radiation solv-
ing. Slabs move every 256 s and reside in the furnace for 8448 s.
The time step for each calculation is 16 s. The conductivity and
ð5Þ specific heat of the slab have piecewise linear profiles as listed in
Table 3.
Fig. 2(a) shows the medium temperature of subzones for Air-
fuel I and Oxy-fuel III. Except for the 5th subzones, Oxy-fuel III
has higher medium temperatures than Air-fuel I because OFC has
 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370 1367

2200 2200

Air-fuel I Air-fuel I
2000 Oxy-fuel III 2000 Oxy-fuel III
Medium Temperature (K)

1800 1800

Wall Temperature (K)

1600 1600

1400 1400

1200 1200

1000 1000

800 800
Z 11 Z 12 Z 13 Z 14 Z 15 Z 21 Z 22 Z 23 Z 24 Z 25 Z 11 Z 12 Z 13 Z 14 Z 15 Z 21 Z 22 Z 23 Z 24 Z 25
Subzone Subzone
(a) Medium (b) Wall
Fig. 2. Medium and wall temperature of subzones for Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel III.

: 200 kw/m2

(a) Air-fuel I

(b) Oxy-fuel III

Fig. 3. Radiative heat flux vector for Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel III.

much higher adiabatic flame temperature than AFC. The tempera-
ture decreases drastically in no fuel-feed subzones. Oxy-fuel III
experiences steeper temperature decrease than Air-fuel I because
it has 0.267 times less flue gas flow rate than Air-fuel I. Medium
temperatures of Oxy-fuel III become lower than those of Air-fuel
I in the 5th subzones.
The medium temperature difference between the two cases is
high upstream and continues to decrease as the flow moves down-
stream. The largest temperature difference between the two cases
is 200 K at the Z21. At the 4th subzones, the medium temperatures
become almost identical to each other. Finally, the medium tem-
peratures are reversed at the 5th subzones just before the flue
gas exits the furnace. The Z25 medium temperature of Oxy-fuel
III is 76.8 K lower than that of Air-fuel I.
Wall-temperature profiles show similar behavior to that found
for the medium-temperature profiles; Oxy-fuel III has higher wall
temperature than Air-fuel I except in the 5th subzones, the differ-
ence between wall temperatures for the two cases continues to
decrease as flow moves downstream, the wall temperature profiles
between the two cases is reversed at the 5th subzones. In view of
local maximum, wall-temperature profiles are a little bit different
from medium-temperature profiles. All the medium-temperature
profiles have their local maxima at the 3rd subzones; however, the
wall-temperature profiles do not show such a consistent behavior
as the medium-temperature profiles in view of local maxima.
Fig. 3 shows radiative flux vector plots for Air-fuel I and Oxy-
fuel III. The figure shows the clear difference in magnitude of radia-
tive flux vector between Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel III. In addition to
having a higher adiabatic flame temperature, OFC has a more
radiatively active medium compared to AFC. Approximately 96%
of the flue gas is involved in radiation in OFC, while only 29% of
the flue gas is involved for AFC. Therefore, except for the 5th sub-
zone, the radiative flux vector strength of Oxy-fuel III is much lar-
ger than that of Air-fuel I. The largest flux magnitudes, as found in
Z23, are 99.0 kW/m2 and 160.4 kW/m2 for Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel
III, respectively.
Fig. 4 shows the radiative heat transfer rate to each slab.
Although OFC cases have larger heat transfer rate than AFC cases
1368 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370

240 9.0
Air-fuel
Air-fuel Air-fuel
210 8.5
Oxy-fuel Oxy-fuel
Oxy-fuel
180 Oxy-fuel 8.0
Radiative Heat Transfer (kw/m)

Radiative Heat Transfer (Mw/m)

150 7.5

120 7.0

90 6.5

60 6.0

30 5.5

0 5.0
5 10 15 20 25 30 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6
Slab f

Fig. 4. Radiative heat transfer rate to the slabs inside the furnace. Fig. 5. Total radiative heat transfer rate into all the slabs inside the furnace.

in the heating zone, a lower heat transfer rate is found in the early 2100
stage of heating. This is because OFC cases have lower medium Air-fuel
temperatures than AFC cases in the 5th subzones, as shown in Air-fuel
Fig. 2(a). Therefore, reversions between any two profiles of differ- Oxy-fuel
1800
ent combustion modes are necessary, and occur downstream of Oxy-fuel
the 3rd subzones; the first reversion occurs between Oxy-fuel III Oxy-fuel
and Air-fuel I at the 5th slab and the last reversion occurs between
Air-fuel II and Oxy-fuel I at the 11th slab. This type of reversion 1500
does not occur between the profiles of the same combustion mode.
Temperature (K)

The maximum radiation heat transfer rate occurs between the

13th and 15th slabs in the 3rd subzones. This is because the med-
ium temperatures are highest at the 3rd subzones, as shown in 1200
Fig. 5(a), and slab temperatures in the 3rd subzones are absolutely
lower than those of upstream subzones, which means the temper-
ature difference between medium and slabs is highest there.
900
Although Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel III have the same fuel-feeding
rate, they show a large difference in the maximum heat transfer
rate. The maximum heat transfer rate of Air-fuel I and Oxy-fuel
III are 92.6 kW/m and 149.3 kW/m, respectively. Even Air-fuel II 600
has lower maximum heat transfer rate than Oxy-fuel I.
Fig. 5 shows total heat transfer rate to all slabs. All the Oxy-fuel
cases have greater total heat transfer rate than any Air-fuel case.
Comparing two cases of identical fuel-feed rate, Oxy-fuel III has a 300
5 10 15 20 25 30
1.35 times larger total heat transfer rate than Air-fuel I, which
Slab
results in the former to have a much higher slab emission temper-
ature than the latter, as shown in Fig. 8. Air-fuel II has a 1.54 times Fig. 6. Mean slab temperature for the slabs inside the furnace.
larger fuel-feed rate than Oxy-fuel I, but has 0.2% less total heat
transfer than Oxy-fuel I. Consequently, Air-fuel II and Oxy-fuel I
give almost identical slab emission temperature, as shown in between any two cases of different combustion mode. The first
Fig. 8. These two comparisons clearly show the superiority of reversion occurs between Oxy-fuel III and Air-fuel I at the 6th slab.
OFC in heating slabs. The last reversion occurs between Oxy-fuel I and Air-fuel II at the
Fig. 6 shows the profiles of the mean slab temperature. In the 24th slab. Regarding the slab emission temperature, the higher the
early stage of heating, AFC cases have higher mean slab tempera- total radiation heat transfer rate the higher the slab emission
ture than any other three OFC cases due to the characteristics of temperature.
radiative heat transfer rate, as discussed in Fig. 4. However, OFC Fig. 7 shows the profile of the temperature difference, which is
cases have higher slab emission temperature than AFC cases. As just the difference between the maximum and minimum temper-
in the radiation heat transfer rate profiles, reversion occurs atures inside a slab. The profiles are found to be very similar to the
 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370 1369

600 Fig. 8(a) shows the slab emission temperature for all the cases.
Air-fuel In the figure, the dashed lines are the lower and upper limit of the
Air-fuel
slab emission temperature requirement, 1373 K and 1573 K. All the
oxy-fuel combustion cases satisfy the slab emission temperature
Oxy-fuel
500 requirement. In the case of air-fuel combustion, Air-fuel II satisfies
Oxy-fuel
the slab emission temperature requirement, whereas Air-fuel I fails
Oxy-fuel
to satisfy the requirement. The slab emission temperature of
Oxy-fuel I is slightly above the lower limit, while Oxy-fuel III has
400
a value near the upper limit. In the case of f = 1.2, OFC can heat
Temperature (K)

slabs up to the upper requirement temperature, whereas AFC fails

to elevate the slab temperature even up to the lower limit. OFC
300 gives a 357 K higher slab emission temperature than AFC for the
same fuel-feed rate of f = 1.2.
The efficiency is defined as the percentage of the net heat trans-
ferred to slabs divided by the total heat input summed over the
200 enthalpy of fuel, enthalpy of oxidizer, and combustion heat.
Fig. 8(b) shows the superiority of OFC in efficiency. The efficiency
of OFC cases is between 71% and 74%, while AFC cases have
efficiencies between 43% and 47%. Oxy-fuel I and Air-fuel II have
100 a performance of 71% and 47.2%, respectively. Considering that
Air-fuel II and Oxy-fuel I give almost the same slab emission
temperature, it can be said that Oxy-fuel I is 54% more fuel efficient
than Air-fuel II.
0
5 10 15 20 25 30 The slab emission temperature and efficiency have opposite
Slab trends. The larger the fuel-feed rate, the lower the efficiency. A
low fuel-feed rate means a lower heat content of the medium,
Fig. 7. Temperature difference for the slabs inside the furnace. which results in a lower medium temperature of Z25. This implies
that the medium experiences the largest temperature decrease
from the adiabatic flame temperature in a lower fuel-feed rate. It
profiles of radiative heat transfer rate to the slab; the AFC cases is evident that the lower the temperature of the flue gases at the
have higher temperature difference than OFC cases in the early stack, the higher the efficiency. As shown in Fig. 7, the slab temper-
stage of heating, OFC cases have larger profile maxima than AFC ature difference is not much different between the cases just
cases, and reversion occurs between any two profiles of OFC and before emission, and it is recommended to use a low fuel-feed rate
AFC cases. The profile maxima are between 250 K and 360 K and as long as the slab emission temperature requirement is satisfied.
occur between the 14th and 15th slabs. Although the profiles show
a wide distribution in the heating zone, they all fall into a relatively
narrow range just before the slabs are emitted. This shows that if 4. Conclusion
the fuel-feed proportions among burners are all the same, the slab
temperature uniformity is not very dependent on the fuel-feed rate The efficiency enhanced by applying oxy-fuel combustion to a
or combustion mode. In the strict sense, OFC cases are slightly reheating furnace was predicted quantitatively using a numerical
more favorable than AFC cases in view of temperature uniformity. approach. A total of five cases, listed in Table 2, were analyzed to
compare the thermal efficiency between air-fuel and oxy-fuel com-
bustion. The resulting conclusions are as follows:
2000 100 When the two identical fuel-feed rate cases for Oxy-fuel III and
Air-fuel I are compared, oxy-fuel combustion was found to have a
Temperature (Air-fuel)
higher medium temperature than air-fuel combustion (except in
Temperature (Oxy-fuel)
Efficiency (Air-fuel) the 5th subzones) because it has a higher adiabatic flame temper-
1800
Efficiency (Oxy-fuel) ature. The medium temperature is reversed between the two cases
Emission Temperature (K)

80 in the 5th subzones because oxy-fuel combustion provides more

heat transfer to slabs upstream of the 5th subzone whereas it
has a relatively low total mass flow rate.
Efficiency (%)

1600
Oxy-fuel III shows far larger radiative heat transfer to slabs than
Air-fuel I except in the early stage of heating. It is because oxy-fuel
combustion has higher medium temperature upstream of the 5th
60
1400 subzone and a more radiative active medium than air-fuel combus-
tion. Oxy-fuel III has a 1.5 times larger total heat transfer to all the
slabs than Air-fuel I. Because of the large difference in the total
heat transfer rate, Oxy-fuel III gives a 120 K larger slab emission
1200 temperature than Air-fuel I. Air-fuel combustion does not have
40 an identical slab emission temperature to oxy-fuel combustion
until it feeds 1.54 times more fuel than oxy-fuel combustion.
Oxy-fuel cases have an efficiency range between 71.1% and
1000
0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 74.2%, while the two air-fuel cases have efficiencies between
f 43.0% and 47.1%. Based on the computational result that Oxy-fuel
I and Air-fuel II give almost the same slab emission temperature,
Fig. 8. Slab emission temperature and heating efficiency. Oxy-fuel I is 54% more fuel efficient than Air-fuel II.
1370 S.H. Han et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 121 (2018) 1364–1370
Conflict of interest
We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest
associated with this publication.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Hongik University new faculty
research support fund.
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