This week, the IFRF  publishes a report relating to the Clean Glass Project.

IFRF Document No. F45/y/1
Characterisation of Heavy Fuel Oil Atomisers

The IFRF participated in the Clean Glass project – “Low NOx Effective Oil and Gas Combustion Technology for Glass Furnaces” – along with 6 industrial and academic partners under the EU funding – BRITE/EURAM 3 programme. This project was coordinated by Saint Gobain.

The work done by the Foundation involved the oil combustion studies for glass melting furnaces.

F45/y/1 – “Characterisation of Heavy Fuel Oil Atomisers” – is the first of the three reports published under this series.

In this report, the following has been presented:

• An experimental study on two types of semi-industrial scale Heavy Fuel Oil atomizers has been carried out in isothermal conditions.
• A Phase Doppler Particle Analyzer (PDPA) is employed to characterize the sprays at flow rates corresponding to 250 kW. The results are compared with a previous study made on a Y-Jet atomizer.
• The distribution extrapolation to the nozzle tip as well as the drop life time in hot combustion gases has been successfully calculated. Software has been developed allowing the automatic treatment of the PDPA data.

The data obtained in this work was used to develop combustion model for oil fired burner used in glass melting furnaces.  The mathematical model is presented in F45/y/3.