Furnace design and
operation
Presented by
Prof. Barrie Jenkins
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 18 - 20th July 2011
Introduction
The course is designed to enable
attendees to develop and operate
industrial process furnaces to maximise
their potential
Over the next three days comprehensive
training in all aspects of furnace design
and operation will be covered
Introduction
Topics that will be covered include
the combustion process and its control
furnace fuels
combustion and process efficiency
burner design and selection
aerodynamics
safety and control
optimisation
Introduction
Each of the lectures is designed to
develop the subject from its engineering
basics to their specific application to
furnaces, concentrating only on those
aspects that are relevant and important,
and using practical examples to
demonstrate their use
What is a furnace
What is a furnace
Classification Example of type of furnace
number
1 watertube boiler
2 water or thermal fluid heater
3 rotary kiln, moving or rotary hearth
4 open hearth furnace
5 fixed or moving grate with steam tubes
6 tubestill cabin heater
7 fluidised bed, multi-hearth furnace
8 refinery cracking furnace
9 tubestill heater, firetube boiler
10 rotary kiln, fluidised bed, flash heating furnace, shaft kiln, moving or rotary hearth
11 open hearth furnace, glass tank, metal reheating furnace
12 refinery cracking furnace, reformer furnace, air heater
13 firetube boiler, tubestill heater metal reheating furnace
14 rotary kiln, fluidised bed, flash heating furnace, shaft kiln, moving or rotary hearth
15 open hearth furnace, glass tank, metal reheating furnace
16 plasma furnace
17 molten metal arc furnace
18 metal melting arc and induction furnaces
19 molten metal immersion heaters, glass tank bed heating
20 muffle furnace
21 batch heater, annealing furnace
What is a furnace
Heat is liberated by burning fuel with air (or oxygen), or
from electrical energy, and some of this heat is
transferred to the product. The remaining heat leaves in
the flue gas and through openings such as charging
doors, or is lost from the external surface
Design objectives
1. Obtain a satisfactory product
2. Use minimum fuel and energy to achieve that product
3. Construct the furnace for the lowest capital cost
4. Operate with the lowest possible manning levels
5. Achieve a satisfactorily long life with low maintenance costs
Objective 1 overrides all others because, if the product is
unsatisfactory, then it cannot be sold or must be sold for an inferior
price
While safety has not been included in the above objectives, it can
be taken as “a given” in today’s environment
The art of furnace design involves achieving the best combination
of these five objectives over the entire life of the furnace, in other
words to produce a high quality product at the lowest achievable
cost
Ceramics, bricks & pottery
Downdraft batch pottery kiln
Lime
Shaft lime kilns
Lime
Twin regenerative lime kilns
Cement
Rotary cement kilns
Glass
Regenerative glass kiln
Metals - steel
Blast furnace - steelmaking
Metals - copper
Reverbatory furnace - copper smelting
Metals - nickel
Hydrogen atmosphere furnace - nickel briquettes
Alumina
Flash calciner
Steel
Reheating furnaces
Incineration
Liquid waste heat recovery unit
Ore treatment
Herreschoff multiple hearth roaster
Oil refining
Petrochemical heaters
Steam raising
Power station boilers