Prevention of local overheating of a radiant tube heater

열처리용 복사튜브의 국부 과열 해소

Radiant tube heaters are widely used for indirect heating in heat treatment processes such as continuous annealing line(CAL) or continuous galvanizing line(CGL). Main issues for radiant tube are temperature uniformity, lifetime, thermal efficiency. To achieve higher heat release, the radiant tubes are fired at a higher fuel rate and therefore local overheating occur. A numerical simulation based on a commercial code FLUENT has been performed to investigate local overheating of radiant tube heaters. To minimize local overheating, the effects of radiating fins, flue gas recirculation(FGR), two-stage combustion were investigated. More uniform temperature distribution was achieved in the longitudinal direction within the tube with radiating fins and this contributed to increase the life of radiant tubes. Furthermore, the radiant tube with radiating fins was proven to be more efficient than the one without fins. The effects of flue gas recirculation and two stage combustion on the efficiency of the radiant tube were also considered and the results were presented.