Energy Efficient Process Heating: Managing Air Flow

2006-01-0832

04/03/2006

Event
SAE 2006 World Congress & Exhibition
Authors Abstract
Content
Much energy is lost through excess air flow in and out of process heating equipment. Energy saving opportunities from managing air flow include minimizing combustion air, preheating combustion air, minimizing ventilation air, and reconfiguring openings to reduce leakage. This paper identifies these opportunities and presents methods to quantify potential energy savings from implementing these energy-savings measures. Case study examples are used to demonstrate the methods and the potential energy savings.
The method for calculating savings from minimizing combustion air accounts for improvement in efficiency from increased combustion temperature and decreased combustion gas mass flow rate. The method for calculating savings from preheating inlet combustion air consists of fundamental heat exchanger and combustion efficiency equations. This method accounts for the reduction of combustion air flow as fuel input declines, which is often neglected in many commonly-used methods. The method for calculating savings from reducing forced ventilation in ovens accounts for flow rate of ventilation air and air temperature when entering and exhausting the oven. The method for calculating savings from reconfiguring oven openings accounts for flow rate of air entering and exiting the oven due to buoyancy forces.
Meta TagsDetails
DOI
https://doi.org/10.4271/2006-01-0832
Pages
11
Citation
Carpenter, K., and Kissock, K., "Energy Efficient Process Heating: Managing Air Flow," SAE Technical Paper 2006-01-0832, 2006, https://doi.org/10.4271/2006-01-0832.
Additional Details
Publisher
Published
Apr 3, 2006
Product Code
2006-01-0832
Content Type
Technical Paper
Language
English