Journal of Mechanics Engineering and Automation 7 (2017) 160-164 doi: 10.17265/2159-5275/2017.03.005 D DAVID PUBLISHING Evaluation of Liquid Water Content in Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using Water Vapor for Industrial Furnace Seigo Sakai Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University, 79-5, Tokiwadai, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501, Japan Abstract: Thermal efficiency has improved by using high-temperature vapor produced by spraying water vapor along with flame from a burner. This study aims to apply high-temperature steam heating mechanism in a high-efficient industrial furnace and household gas range. Past studies in this laboratory show that the heat transfer is promoted due to the appropriate amount of water content in each convection, radiation heat transfer. Then, water vapor-added industrial metal melting furnace has been researched. However, the existing furnace was intended to evaluate only the effect of water vapor except measuring surrounding environment, for example temperature and humidity. In this study, the effect of surrounding environment to the furnace is examined, and possibility of heat transfer enhancement is estimated. As a result, surrounding experimental condition has little effect on the change of heating ability, while this experimental furnace shows gradual degradation of heating ability in every experimental trial. Then optimum amount of water supply to the apparatus was discussed. Too much water injection leads to more consumption of heat as latent heat of water in phase change, and exceeds the effect of water vapor in heat transfer. There is a possibility of suitable total water supply, despite that there is no significant change in gas usage in water injection case compared with no water injection. Key words: High-temperature water vapor, thermal radiation, convective heat transfer, heat transfer enhancement. 1. Introduction Heating mechanism due to burner is globally applied to metal melting furnaces or boilers in industrial field, but the mechanism is still low thermal efficient process because exhaust gas brings away much of heat from those instruments. In my laboratory, water vapor has been focused on to overcome the prescribed problems [1-5]. Water vapor is well known as one of the green effect gases, and it absorbs and re-emits radiation. Injecting water into a metal melting furnace using burner flame, water is heated and turns to vapor. Supplied heat from the burner is absorbed into the vapor, and re-emitted. Therefore, heat transfer between combustion gas and melting pot is enhanced. This enhancement is supposed Corresponding author: Seigo Sakai, Dr. of Engrg., associate professor, research fields: thermo fluid control and heat transfer in equipment. to be occurred in both convective and radiative heat transfer, and heat loss due to exhaust gas should be reduced. However, with respect to utilization of water vapor, there are still some problems, the present facility of superheated steam production system is expensive in the case that the superheated steam is positively introduced to the heating mechanism, and the conventional melting furnace should be large if the additional equipment to supply steam or water vapor is attached [6]. My laboratory has proposed a simple system to supply water vapor [7]. Water is directly introduced into the furnace around burner flame, and water vapor is produced. The produced water vapor is blown together with combustion gas, and exhaust gas containing much vapor heats a melting pot. This heating mechanism needs no heat recovery systems, and is expected to enhance heat transfer drastically.
Evaluation of Liquid Water Content in Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using 161 This proposal was empirically discussed, and there should be a possibility of heat transfer enhancement. It is noticed that too much or too little amount of water supply may have no role for heat transfer enhancement, and that there should be an optimum amount of water supply to express heat transfer enhancement. This possibility is only confirmed in the case that the obstruction around the melting pot is set or not, and that the amount of supplied water is varied, and not well-discussed, because precise experimental conditions, such as instantaneous room temperature and humidity, or instantaneous amount of supplied fuel gas, are not controlled. In this study, experimental condition, such as experimental room temperature and humidity, is focused on, and the characteristic of original experimental apparatus (no water supply condition) is evaluated, and then optimum amount of water supply to the apparatus is discussed. 2. Experimental Apparatus Fig. 1 shows the experimental apparatus of metal melting furnace. Melting pot is 30 cm in diameter and 40 cm in height, and is settled in the furnace of heat-resistant brick. A burner is set on the bottom of the furnace, and water injector is introduced at the side of burner flame. Water amount is measured by a flowmeter. Sheath K-type thermocouples are set on the furnace, and an R-type thermocouple is inserted into the flame to measure temperature. Supplied fuel gas is measured by a gas flowmeter azbil CMG150. Humidity of experimental room is measured by a weather meter kestrel 4,200. Melted metal is aluminum ingot ADC-12, which melting point is 660 C. 3. Experimental Method Confirming the room temperature and temperature on the apparatus as determined initial value, a burner is started. Temperature variation of several points on the apparatus, instantaneous amount of supplied fuel gas, and room conditions are measured during the temperature difference of melting metal is 700 C from the initial value. In the case of water injection to the furnace, at the same time of burner started, water pump is turn on, and the amount of supplied water is adjusted to the determined value. Supplied water has been reserved in the tank to be kept the same temperature as room temperature. 4. Experimental Results 4.1 Average Fuel Gas Flow Rate Fig. 2 shows the instantaneous flow rate of supplied fuel gas. The abscissa shows the number of experimental Fig. 1 Experimental apparatus.
162 Evaluation of Liquid Water Content in Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using Avg. Gas flow rate (m 3 /h) 3.4 3.2 3.0 ΔTemperature ( ) 600 400 200 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 Number of trials Fig. 2 Averaged fuel gas flow rate. trial, and the ordinate shows the averaged fuel gas flow rate calculated from the instantaneous flow rate. Even though each data is attained at the different conditions (seasons), almost all flow rate are the same within the error range. This figure implies that combustion states in the furnace are almost the same even if the room temperature and humidity are varied. This is because the used burner is automatically controlled to be the same equivalent ratio. 4.2 Deterioration of Apparatus and Correction of Gas Usage Fig. 3 shows time variation of melting metal temperature for all empirical trials. The larger the number of empirical trials becomes, the longer the period of melting metal becomes. This implies that the apparatus is deteriorated. Commercially used furnaces usually receive heat and temperature increase is just initially given to the furnace. If metal is melted, the furnace is kept at the certain temperature over the melting point. Even though the furnace is made in heat-resistant brick, the brick is not so strong against repeated temperature raise and drop, as is in this experiment. Therefore, the furnace is damaged by heat stress, and some cracks may occur on the furnace. Fig. 4 shows the change of gas usage against the number of empirical trials. When the number of empirical trial increases, the amount of fuel gas usage 0 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 Time (s) Fig. 3 Time variation of melting metal temperature. 15 10 5 Gas usage (Gas usage with water) Fit liner 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 Number of trials Fig. 4 Gas usage for empirical trials. also increases at the constant increment. This result indicates that the prescribed deterioration occurs constantly for all experiments. Approximation curve is drawn in the figure, and high correlation is provided, resulting in over 97%. Therefore, amount of gas usage can be corrected using this approximation curve, and the subsequent discussion is proceeded by eliminating the effect of the deterioration of the furnace. 4.3 Effect of Initial Room Temperature Fig. 5 represents the relation between averaged absolute humidity and gas usage with changing the initial room temperature. This figure indicates that the amount of gas usage is independent of absolute
Evaluation of Liquid Water Content in Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using 163 8.8 8.6 8.4 8.2 7.8 7.6 7.4 7.2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 Avg. Absolute humidity (g/kg) Fig. 5 Gas usage for averaged absolute humidity. humidity for every initial room temperature. This is because the amount of water vapor in the combustion gas is much larger than that in the combustion air. Regarding the difference of initial room temperature, amount of gas usage is also independent of the initial room temperature. In this study, temperature increment is kept constant at 700 C, and this increment is much larger than the difference of initial room temperature. 4.4 Effect of Water Supply 20 25 30 From the results of previous sections, initial condition of experimental room does not affect the heat transfer enhancement. Therefore, water injection experiment is carried out, and the results are shown in Figs. 6 and 7. From these two figures, gas usage increases with water injection of 5 and 10 ml/min, resulting in decrease of thermal efficiency of the furnace. Too much water injection leads to more consumption of heat as latent heat of water in phase change, and exceeds the effect of water vapor in heat transfer. In case of water injection less than 2 ml/min, there is no significant change in gas usage compared with no water injection. However, there is a possibility that suitable total water supply, i.e., suitable absolute humidity may bring heat transfer enhancement as 3.6 g/min or 7 g/kg. Gas useage (m 3 ) 9.0 8.5 0ml/min 7.5 10ml/min 5ml/min 2ml/min 1ml/min 7.0 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Avg. Absolute humidity (g/kg) Fig. 6 Gas usage for averaged absolute humidity with water injection. 9.0 8.5 7.5 7.0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112131415161718 Total water supply (g/min) Fig. 7 Gas usage for total water supply. 5. Conclusions 0ml/min 10ml/min 5ml/min 2ml/min 1ml/min In this study, experimental condition, such as experimental room temperature and humidity, was focused on, and the characteristic of original experimental apparatus (no water supply condition) was evaluated. Surrounding experimental condition has little effect on the change of heating ability, while this experimental furnace shows gradual degradation of heating ability in every experimental trial. Then optimum amount of water supply to the apparatus was discussed. Too much water injection leads to more consumption of heat as latent heat of water in phase change, and
164 Evaluation of Liquid Water Content in Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using exceeds the effect of water vapor in heat transfer. There is a possibility that suitable total water supply, i.e., suitable absolute humidity may bring heat transfer enhancement as 3.6 g/min or 7 g/kg, despite that there is no significant change in gas usage in water injection case compared with no water injection. Acknowledgement This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15K05820. This work is collaboration with the former laboratory student, Kentaro Sone. References [1] Sakai, S., and Okuyama, K. 2012. Heating Device. Japanese patent publication number 2012-021684. [2] Ichikawa, Y. 2011. Evaluation of Impact of Radiative Heat Transfer on Prospect of Heat Transfer Enhancement due to High-Temperature Water Vapor. Master Thesis, Yokohama National University. [3] Yanagisawa, M. 2011. The Assessment of Convective Heat Transfer in High-Temperature Steam Heating Mechanism for Development of High-Efficient Industrial Furnace. Master Thesis, Yokohama National University. [4] Morikawa, K. 2013. Study of Construction of the Simple Water Vapor Heating Machine towards Development of an Efficient Industrial Furnace. Master Thesis, Yokohama National University. [5] Sone, K. 2015. Effect Assessment of the Surrounding Environment Condition to the Initial Heatup towards Development of an Efficient Industrial Furnace. Master Thesis, Yokohama National University. [6] Isa, A., Hagura, Y., and Suzuki, K. 2006. Enhancement of Heat Transfer Rate and Thermal Efficiency by Combining Far Infrared Heating with Superheated Steam Treatment. Japan Journal of Food Engineering 7 (4): 225-32. [7] Sakai, S. 2015. Proposal of Thermal Efficient Heating Mechanism Using. Proc. International Scientific Conference of Engineering and Applied Science (ISCEAS 2015). Okinawa. ISCEAS-728, 391-8.