Steel Times International APRIL 2002
The use of oxy-fuel burners in reheat furnaces greatly reduces the volume of flue gas produced which in turn leads to lower heat losses and emissions to the atmosphere, lower fuel consumption, greater productivity as a result of more rapid heating times and reduced scaling of the charge.
A GA (now a member of the Linde AG group) work with all oxy-fuel fired heating furnaces started in the early to mid 1980s as a result of collaborative work with two major steel customers. The primary concerns in the steel industry are productivity, energy efficiency, and reduced emissions. These demands can and indeed have been satisfied by the use of oxy-fuel combustion in a wide range of both batch and continuous type furnaces.
Continuous furnaces such as pusher, walking beam or roller hearth are designed so that the exhaust gases flow counter-current to the in-coming product in order that the energy contained can be used in the pre-heat zone at the entrance to the furnace, thus improving the thermal efficiency. The use of oxy-fuel in such furnaces however offers a step change increase in fuel efficiency and productivity not attainable by air-fuel combustion techniques.