Numerical modeling of oxy-fuel and air-fuel burners for aluminium melting

Abstract

In recent years oxy-fuel combustion has become an increasingly attractive alternative as a heating source when melting aluminium. A newly developed Low Temperature Oxy-fuel burner from Linde Gas was investigated and compared to a conventional cold air-fuel burner in an instrumented pilot scale furnace. Measurements and heating trials of aluminium samples were done for four different case studies. 3-dimensional CFD models using the commercial software package ANSYS Fluent were developed to attain additional knowledge and to demonstrate CFD as a viable tool to model aluminium melting furnaces. Good agreement was found between the numerical models and the measurements where the difference in heat transfer between the two burner technologies was clearly demonstrated.