High eciency heat-recirculating domestic gas burners

Sumrerng Jugjai
*
, Natthawut Rungsimuntuchart
Combustion and Engine Research Laboratory (CERL), Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Mongkuts University of Technology
Thonburi (KMUTT), 91 Sukswas 48, Bangmod, Tungkru, Bangkok 10140, Thailand
Received 28 December 2001; received in revised form 12 February 2002; accepted 19 April 2002
Abstract
Existing designs of most conventional domestic burners (CB) have typically relied on open combustion ame, where a large
amount of energy loss with the ue gas arises, resulting in relatively low thermal eciency (<30%). Against this background, a novel
semi-conned porous radiant recirculated burner (PRRB) concept based on heat-recirculating combustion using the porous medium
technology was developed for energy savings in domestic use and in the small-scale food processing industry. Performance of the
new burner using the same ring burners as those in the CB, i.e. the PRRB(CB) were evaluated by comparing thermal eciencies and
the combustion characteristics with those of the conventional one (CB). Operating parameters such as heat input, ow type of the
ring burners (conventional radial ow (CB) or swirling central ow (SB)) were claried. The proposed PRRB(CB) is very eective in
establishing a heat-recirculation mechanism from the hot exhaust gas to the combustion air, resulting in ecient combustion air
preheating with maximum combustion air temperature of 300 C. Thermal eciency of the proposed PRRB(CB) is increased to
about 12% higher than that of the conventional one (CB). Further improvement in thermal eciency of the burner can be realized
by combining the PRRB with the swirling central ame ring burner (SB), i.e. the PRRB(SB), yielding a maximum thermal eciency
of about 60% and, thus, energy saving of about 50% in average over the operating range. The proposed PRRB(SB) provides not
only high thermal eciency and considerable improvement in energy saving but also environmentally compatible emissions. With
the model proposed, the calculated thermal eciencies of the PRRB(SB) can be predicted and agree well with the experimental
ones. 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Porous medium; Heat-recirculating combustion; Heat transfer enhancement; Swirling ow; Gas burner; Premixed impinging ame
1. Introduction
The major challenge for advanced utilization of fossil
fuel energy via combustion is focused on environment,
eciency and economics. To meet these requirements,
the development of combustion equipment must be di-
rected at environmental compatibility, high eciency,
high intensity, plus low capital and operating costs. The
heat-recirculating burner, in which reactants are heated
prior to the ame zone by heat transfer from burnt
products without mixing two streams, is such a device
that eectively converts energy from gas fuel combus-
tion to thermal load, leading to complete combustion
and energy saving. Energy saving translate to reduction
of CO
2
and other greenhouse gases to the environment.
Considerable practical benets from the heat-recircu-
lating or regenerative burner have been pointed out
by Weinberg [13], who proposed several recuperative
schemes for practice. Among them, the porous medium
burner, in which the combustion ame is embedded,
is one of the most promising approaches for indus-
trial applications because it oers favorable combus-
tion characteristics when compared with a conventional
burner operating with free ame. These are super-
adiabatic combustion having a peak temperature much
higher than the theoretical one, high ame speed, high
combustion intensity, extended lean ammability limits,
low emissions of pollutants (such as NO
x
and CO) and
high radiant output [410]. Driven by the desire for
energy saving and the need to emit minimal pollutants,
interest in the heat-recirculating combustion based on
the porous medium technology is continuously growing.
It has been well developed leading to commercial ap-
plications for advanced industrial burner and furnace,
Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
www.elsevier.com/locate/etfs
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +662-470-9111/470-9128; fax: +662-
470-9111.
E-mail address: sumrueng.jug@kmutt.ac.th (S. Jugjai).
0894-1777/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.
PII: S0894- 1777( 02) 00164- 4
such as radiant tube burners, glass melting furnaces and
slab reheating furnaces [1114]. Recent development on
the new type of glass melting regenerative furnace at
Nippon Furnace Kogyo (NFK) makes it possible to
preheat the combustion air, typically above 1000 C, by
recirculating the hot exhaust gas resulting in fuel saving
up to 50% over cold air systems, as well as a signicant
decrease of greenhouse gas CO
2
and NO
x
emissions [12].
Heat-recirculating combustion based on the porous me-
dium technology has now been considered as the emerg-
ing furnace design methodology for the next generation
of high performance combustion systems.
While the above-mentioned development of the heat-
recirculating burners using porous medium technology
has been focused on large-scale industrial gas burners
and furnaces, very little attention [15,16] has been paid
to domestic application in this type of burner (i.e. the
porous radiant recirculated burner PRRB). Existing
domestic burners have solely relied on the self-aspirating
atmospheric conventional burner with radially owing,
ring burner (hereafter referred to as CB, see Fig. 5). The
importance of the CB need not be stressed here, owing
to its simplicity and wide application, both in domestic
appliances and small-scale industrial burners. However,
in view of energy conservation, it is less attractive owing
to its relatively low thermal eciency (<30%). Thus,
improvement in the thermal eciency of the domestic
burners CB is of great interest in view of the need for
energy conservation and of concern on global environ-
mental pollution, especially in Thailand where energy
consumption in the domestic sector is comparable to
that in industry.
In the present paper experimental investigations are
discussed under two major headings. The rst concerns
the application of the porous medium technology to
establish the heat-recirculating mechanism from exhaust
gas to combustion air in the conventional domestic
burner (CB) so as to realize a new version, high e-
ciency heat-recirculating gas burner for domestic appli-
ances and for small-scale food processing industries (i.e.
the PRRB(CB)). The second concentrates on the appli-
cation of the swirling central ow burner (SB) technol-
ogy (see Fig. 6) to further enhancing thermal eciency
of the new burner (i.e. the PRRB(SB)). Performance of
the new burner is compared with that of the conven-
tional one (CB) through measured thermal ecien-
cies, energy saving and emission characteristics. With
the detailed numerical model proposed, the thermal
eciency of this new type of burner is computed and
compared with the experimental observation.
Nomenclature
A heat transfer area, m
2
C
p
specic heat at constant pressure, J kg
1
K
1
D burner diameter, mm
D
p
vessel diameter, mm
d port diameter, mm
h heat transfer coecient, Wm
2
K
1
LHV low heating value of gas fuel, kJ m
3
_ mm
g
mass ow rate of gas, kg s
1
m
water
mass of water in the vessel, kg
Pr Prandtl number, lC
p
=k
Q
a
useful heat, kW
Q
b
heat absorbed by the vessel at the bottom
surface, kW
Q
ex
heat loss with ue gases at furnace exit or
vessel rim or heat exchanger inlet, kW
Q
in
heat input to the burner from fuel supplied
and the combustion air entrained, kW
Q
loss
heat loss with ue gases at heat exchanger
exit, kW
Q
pre
recirculating heat, kW
Re Reynolds number quD=l
T temperature, C
t burning time, s
u gas velocity (based on diameter of the outer
ring burner), ms
1
v volume ow rate of fuel, m
3
s
1
Greek symbols
a swirl angle (between the port axes and the
radius of the burner)
b inclination angle (between the port axes and
the top surface of the burner)
U equivalence ratio (theoretical air supplied to
actual air supplied)
g
th
thermal eciency
k, j thermal conductivity, Wm
1
K
1
l gas viscosity, kg m
1
s
1
q gas density, kg m
3
s optical thickness
Subscripts
AP absorbing porous medium
EP emitting porous medium
b bottom surface of the vessel
d downstream
ex exhaust gases at furnace exit or vessel rim or
heat exchanger inlet
f ame
g gas
i initial condition (303 K)
pre preheat
u upstream
w wall
582 S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
2. State of the art
2.1. Reduction of energy consumption by combustion air
preheating
Preheating of combustible mixture by recycled heat
from exhaust gas has been considered as an eective
method not only for combustion of low caloric fuels
but also for fuel conservation. This type of combustion
has been called excess enthalpies or super-adiabatic
ame temperatures combustion in which the reactants
(or the combustion air alone) are preheated using heat
borrowed from beyond the ame zone, without mix-
ing the two streams [1]. Although the principle is not
sophisticated, the consequences of its application can be
quite far reaching and very advantageous from the point
of view of fuel conservation, eciency and combustion
intensity. The enthalpy histories of premixed combus-
tion in a one-dimensional adiabatic system are sche-
matically compared in Fig. 1 for cases with and without
heat recirculation. In the presence of heat recirculation
from the exhaust gas to the combustion air (Q
pre
) with
constant heat input (Q
in
), a greatly elevated enthalpy
(and, of course, the ame temperature) and hence useful
energy Q
0
a
(larger than Q
a
) can be realized, leading to
energy saving as dened by Eq. (1)
Energy saving
Q
pre
Q
a
Q
pre

g
th;2
g
th;1
g
th;2
1
where g
th;1
and g
th;2
, respectively, represent the thermal
eciency of the system before and after introducing the
heat-recirculating combustion. Fig. 2 shows the typical
eect of combustion air preheating (T
air;pre
) on energy
saving (and, of course, substantial reduction in CO
2
emissions) at various operating exhaust gas tempera-
tures (T
ex
) from the exit of the furnace section (before
entering a heat exchanger). The higher T
air;pre
ensures less
rejection of heat with the exhaust, resulting in more fuel
saving. Operating the combustion process at relatively
high exhaust gas temperature (T
ex
) with constant T
air;pre
is more ecient than operating at lower T
ex
.
2.2. Eective method for combustion air preheating
A great variety of systems is possible for combustion
air preheating, all based on a combustor in-between the
two limbs of a heat exchanger [2]. However, it would
seem retrograde to develop a new practical combustion
system, which does not involve a porous medium, hav-
ing a large surface area per unit volume, for an eective
heat exchanger to recirculate heat from products
to combustible mixture (or air alone). Based on the
prominent feature of the porous medium in eectively
converting energy between owing gas enthalpy and
thermal radiation, the development of a high per-
formance heat exchanger using a porous medium was
proposed by Echigo [17,18]. The basic concept consists
of a pair of porous mediums with appropriate opacity
separated by a solid wall as shown in Fig. 3. Enthalpy of
the hot owing gas (combustion products) is eectively
converted to thermal radiation emitted by the high
temperature (heating) side porous medium designated as
the emitter and directed to the solid wall. In thermal
equilibrium, the reversed conversion from the incident
thermal radiation emitted from the solid wall to the cool
gas (or combustion air) enthalpy takes place in the low
Fig. 1. Comparison of enthalpy history between systems with and
without heat recirculation.
Fig. 2. Energy savings as a function of preheating air temperature.
Fig. 3. Heat exchanger based on energy conversion between convection
and thermal radiation by porous medium.
S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592 583
temperature (cooling) side porous medium designated
as the absorber, leading to an ecient method in
preheating the combustion air.
2.3. Enhancement of heat transfer by a swirling central
ame burner (SB)
The essential feature of the swirling central ame is
the implementation of a centered, rotating vertical ame
rather than of the radially owing, band-form ame
generated by the conventional burners (see Figs. 8 and 9
for comparison). The swirling central ame is formed by
supplying a mixture of the gas and the primary air
through inclined ports in the ring burner (see Fig. 6).
The axes of the ports are arranged in such a way that
they make an angle b toward the burner center with
respect to the ring burner horizontal plane, and an angle
a with respect to the ring burner radius. Thus, the ame
jets emerging from the individual ports form a vertical
rotating ame over the ring burner (Fig. 8). Then, the
swirling ame impinges on the bottom surface of the
vessel to be heated (not shown) and forms a rotating,
radially diverging jet of hot gases. The improvement in
thermal eciency of the SB [19,20] is mainly achieved by
the implementation of the swirling central ame, since
(a) the heat transfer coecient at the vessel bottom is
signicantly improved, especially at high ow rates,
which results from improvement in the residence time of
the combustion products in the vicinity of the vessel
bottom and, (b) the central ame covers a greater heat
transfer area of the vessel bottom in comparison with
the band-form ame of the CB. Also improvement in
mixing and combustion process can be realized in the
swirling central ame because of the rotating movement
of the ow eld.
3. Experimental apparatus
Based on previous studies on the porous radiant re-
circulated burner (hereafter referred to as PRRB) as
proposed by Jugjai et al. [15,16], we try to scale up the
burner capacity (from 5 kW up to 30 kW) so as to ex-
tend its practical applications, especially, to small-scale
food processing industries. Fig. 4 shows a schematic
sketch of the new version of the PRRB. Focuses have
been made on the arrangement of a pair of the porous
medium; the emitting porous medium (EP) and the ab-
sorbing porous medium (AP), through which part of the
exhaust gas enthalpy is recirculated to the combustion
air (primary air) by thermal radiation as described in the
preceding section. Both EP and AP are formed by a
stack of pieces of stainless steel wire net having 40 mesh
per inch and apparent optical thicknesses (production of
an extinction coecient and a geometrical thickness) of
s
EP
1:5 and s
AP
3, respectively. The design concept,
operational function, experimental apparatus and in-
strumentation are quite similar to those of the previous
one [15] but with a dierent geometric size, burner ca-
pacity and testing standard. To meet the requirement for
a larger capacity burner, a set of self-aspirating atmo-
spheric radial ow conventional burners CB as shown in
Fig. 5, which is available in Thailand, is used. It consists
of two radial ow ring burners (i.e. the inner one and the
outer one), a long mixing tube and an orice with a
control valve. Inasmuch as the concept in the preceding
section is attractive from the viewpoint of energy saving,
this experiment on PRRB in combination with the CB
(hereafter referred to as the PRRB(CB) as shown in
Figs. 4 and 9) is carried out rst to demonstrate its
validity.
Thermal eciency is determined according to the
German Standard [21] instead of the British Standard
[22], owing to the formers applicability to varying ca-
pacities of the burner thermal output. The eciency, g
th
,
is dened as the ratio of the sensible heat absorbed by
the specied mass of water (m
water
20 kg), to raised its
temperature from an initial value T
water;i
to 363 K, to the
combustion heat of the burned gaseous fuel, as ex-
pressed by Eq. (2)
Fig. 4. Porous radiant recirculated burner PRRB in combination with
the conventional burner CB (PRRB(CB)).
Fig. 5. Self-aspirating atmospheric conventional burner (CB) with
radial ow ring burners.
584 S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
g
th

m
water
C
p;water
363 T
water;i

v LHV t
2
To further enhance the thermal eciency of the PRRB,
a special feature is included in the newly proposed
PRRB by incorporating the swirling central ow ring
burner (hereafter referred to as SB, see Fig. 6). With
recent development in the SB [19], it is evident that the
SB (with the recommended swirl angle a 15 and the
inclination angle b 26 of the burner ports as shown in
Fig. 6) can yield an increase in thermal eciency of up
to about 15% higher than that of the CB at the same
heat input, owing to a higher heat transfer coecient
between the ame and the heat transfer surfaces (vessel).
The PRRB incorporating with the SB (hereafter referred
to as PRRB(SB)) provides an alternative burner for
obtaining maximum possible thermal eciency. The
PRRB(SB) can easily be made from the PRRB(CB) by
merely replacing the outer ring burner of the CB (Fig. 5)
with the SB ring burner (Fig. 6) without any alterations
of the other burner components. Detailed specications
of the considered inner and outer ring burners of the CB
and the SB are summarized in Table 1.
Liqueed petroleum gas (LPG) was used as a fuel in
the experiment. The composition of the LPG was 40%
(by vol.) propane (C
3
H
8
) and 60% butane (C
4
H
10
) with
a low heating value of about 115 MJ/m
3
(normal). LPG
was metered by calibrated rotameters. K-type sheath
thermocouples of 0.5 mm wire diameter were used in the
experiment at all measuring locations (T
EP;d
, T
EP;u
, T
AP;d
,
T
AP;u
and T
air;pre
), whereas a mercury thermometer was
used in measuring T
water
. The thermocouple signals were
digitized by a general-purpose data logger, and then
transmitted to a personal computer.
Analysis of the dry combustion products at the heat
exchanger exit (downstream side of the EP) is carried
out by using the Messtechnik Eheim model Visit01L,
which is a portable emission analyzer especially desig-
nated for quasi-continuous measurement. A gas pro-
cessing system of NO
x
and CO is especially tuned for
electro-chemical sensors, ensuring long-time stability
and accuracy of measurement. The measuring range of
the analyzer is 04000 ppm for NO
x
and 010,000 ppm
for CO with measuring accuracy of about 5 ppm (from
the measured value) and resolution of 1 ppm for both
NO
x
and CO. All measured emissions in the experiment
are those corrected to 0% excess oxygen and dry-basis.
The purpose of the experimental tests was to deter-
mined whether the newly developed PRRB in combi-
nation with the CB and the SB works. The main issue
was to succeed in increasing thermal eciency as much
as possible based on the combination of the porous
medium technology with various types of the burner
congurations, while keeping the emissions environ-
mentally compatible.
4. Model considerations
Fig. 7 shows a schematic diagram of energy ow
across the control volume of the typical PRRB(SB)
system. Q
in
is heat input to the ring burner from fuel
supplied and the combustion air entrained, while Q
b
and
Q
loss
, respectively, represent heat absorbed by the vessel
and heat loss with the ue gases at the heat exchanger
exit (downstream side of the EP). Q
pre
is the internal
heat recirculated from the exhaust gas to the entrained
combustion air (both the primary air and the secondary
air) being preheated to T
air;pre
. For simplicity, it is as-
sumed here that the combustion rate of the gaseous
mixture emerging from the ring burner ports is innitely
Fig. 6. Swirling central ow ring burner (SB).
Table 1
Detailed specications of the ring burners
Type Number of port Total port
area (mm
2
)
Port area ratio,
% SB/CB
Flow type
Inner ring Outer ring
d 1:0 mm d 2:5 mm d 1:0 mm d 2:5 mm
CB 54 54 117 117 974 Radial
SB 54 54 104 818 84 Swirl
a
a
Only the outer ring burner.
S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592 585
fast so that an upward moving lump of high temperature
gas with uniformly distributed ame temperature T
f
is
assumed to be formed between the ring burner exit and
the stagnation region at the vessel bottom. The heat loss
due to chemically incomplete combustion and ame
radiation is neglected. Then the hot gas forms the ro-
tating and radial diverging jet from the stagnation point
to the vessel rim with a decreasing in its temperature and
enthalpy, respectively, to T
ex
(which is equivalent to
T
EP;u
in the experiment) and Q
ex
caused by the heat
transfer through the vessel bottom Q
b
with an average
heat transfer coecient h
b
at the constant vessel bottom
temperature T
w
. The heat transfer through the lateral
surface of the vessel is negligible owing to its relatively
low heat transfer coecient compared with that of at the
bottom surface [19]. With this explanation, a disk ame
is assumed to be formed at the vessel bottom even
though dierent combustion modes (such as disc and
ring ame) may be established even under identical
burner ow conditions of a turbulent premixed im-
pinging ame [23]. The ame of the PRRB(SB) can be
considered as a turbulent premixed impinging ame in
the sense that it is semi-conned and strongly deected
by the vessel bottom. The combustion regimes depend
on various parameters, thus, inevitably aecting the heat
transfer characteristic. The heat transfer process from
the hot gas to the water vessel is assumed to be steady,
i.e. a boiling test. By considering the control volume
covering the burner and the volume in between the
burner exit and the bottom surfaces of the vessel, the
thermal eciency could be written as
g
th
; %
Q
b
100
Q
in
3
where Q
b
can be dened as
Q
b
h
b
A
b
T
f
T
w
T
ex
T
w

lnT
f
T
w
=T
ex
T
w

4
or
Q
b
_ mm
g
C
p;g
T
f
T
ex
5
Here h
b
is the heat transfer coecient at the bottom
surface obtained from the experiment using the same
procedure as in [24] and its correlation obtained is
dened by
h
b
31:96k Pr
0:42
Re
0:50
D
0:5
D
1:5
p
!
6
where Re quD=l and u represents mean ow velocity
across the outer ring burner diameter D (Fig. 6). A
logarithmic mean temperature dierence (LMTD) is
used in Eq. (4) since the temperature dierences between
the gas and the bottom surface of the vessel are de-
creased with the owing distance of the hot gas. The
total mass ow rate of the combustion gas _ mm
g
in Eq. (5)
is the summation of mass ow rate of fuel, the primary
air (dened as the combustion air entrained by a jet of
the gas emerging from the orice into a mixing tube) and
the secondary air (dened as the remaining combustion
air which is entrained through the opening hole at the
bottom of the burner (Fig. 4)).
In order to solve either Eqs. (4) or (5) for Q
b
, the
ame temperature T
f
and the exhaust gas temperature
T
ex
at the vessel rim must be known. T
f
could be theo-
retically estimated by considering the thermochemistry
of the combustible mixture once the total mass ow rate
_ mm
g
and the T
air;pre
are specied. However, it is very dif-
cult to accurately specify the value of _ mm
g
due to the
involvement of the entrained primary air and the sec-
ondary air. In this problem, the trial and error method
in combination with the graphical method were used to
obtain Q
b
. _ mm
g
is rst assumed with the specied fuel ow
rate v and T
f
is calculated from the thermochemistry by
taking into account the eect of combustion air pre-
heating T
air;pre
from the experiment. Then, Q
b
T
ex
rela-
tionships were plotted using the Eqs. (4) and (5) with the
measured values of h
b
, A
b
and T
w
. This trial and error
procedure for estimating m
g
and T
f
followed by dis-
playing the Q
b
T
ex
relationships is repeated until the two
curves of the Q
b
T
ex
relationships from Eqs. (4) and (5)
give an intersection point, yielding a satised Q
b
. The
thermal eciency g
th
is then estimated from Eq. (3) with
the known value of Q
in
.
5. Results and discussions
5.1. Behavior and assessment of the SB burner
Stability of ame from multi-port burner is strongly
inuenced by ame interaction, which is in turn de-
pendent on size, shape and disposition of the ame ports
on the burner head. If the edge-to-edge spacing of multi-
Fig. 7. Physical model of the PRRB(SB).
586 S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
port burner is less than 5 mm, then ames stabilized
over the individual ports can interact by exchange of
heat and reactive radicals and species, and the ame
stability of the burner can be greatly enhanced in com-
parison to that of an array of more widely spaced ports
[25]. For extensive arrays of closely spaced ports con-
guration, a single inner cone covers all of the ports and
is stabilized at the edge of the port array. This phe-
nomena was avoided during the modication of the
proposed SB from the original smaller one [19] so as to
maintain the ame stability. The structure of the swirl-
ing central ame of the SB, which shows a strong in-
teraction of ame jets issued from the individual ports, is
visible in Fig. 8. The ame structure of the conventional
radial ow ame (CB) with an array of more widely
spaced ports is also shown in Fig. 9 for comparison. The
SB ame is well stabilized down to a turndown ratio of
5:1 and yielded multiple blue inner cones in which the
edges of the inner cones have coalesced and the outer
diusion ame is common to all ports. For this case, the
SB has a port area of about 84% of that of the CB.
5.2. Improvement of thermal eciency by the proposed
PRRB(CB)
5.2.1. Comparison of thermal eciency
Fig. 10 shows the measured thermal eciencies of
the PRRB(CB) and the CB as a function of heat input
Q
in
. The PRRB(CB) remarkably yields about 12%
higher thermal eciency on average than that of the CB
throughout the experimental range. An increase in the
maximum thermal eciency g
th
from 30% to 44% using
the PRRB(CB) is observed. This is attributed to an ef-
fective heat-recirculation mechanism from the exhaust
gas to the combustion air as shown in Fig. 11. A large
temperature drop across the thickness of the emitting
porous medium (T
EP;u
T
EP;d
) over the experimental
range implies that a large amount of exhaust gas enth-
alpy was converted to an increase in enthalpy of the
primary air owing through the absorbing porous me-
dium AP, leading to a signicant increase in the tem-
perature (T
air;pre
) of the primary combustion air. The
PRRB(CB) can preheat the primary air to the maximum
Fig. 9. Conventional radial ow ame (CB) in the PRRB housing.
Fig. 8. Swirling central ame (SB) in the PRRB housing.
Fig. 11. Variation of temperatures inside the PRRB(CB) with heat
input CL.
Fig. 10. Improvement of thermal eciency by the PRRB(CB).
S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592 587
temperature level of about 300 C at Q
in
28 kW. Both
the CB and the PRRB(CB) reveal the same qualita-
tive characteristics of the heat input dependency of the
thermal eciencies (Fig. 10). When Q
in
is increased, the
burner eciencies are also increased because of an in-
crease in the heat transfer coecient at the bottom
surface of the vessel [19]. Then the thermal eciencies
come to the optimum values at Q
in
ranging from 1012
kW. For Q
in
above this range, the normal behavior of
decreasing g
th
with increasing Q
in
for the two burners
are observed. This is because of an excessive heat rate
causing incomplete combustion and a higher heat loss
rate with the ue gas to the environment than the heat
absorption rate by the vessel.
5.2.2. Eective heat-recirculation mechanism by the
porous medium
Since the preheated air temperature T
air;pre
is one of
the most important factors characterizing the heat-re-
circulation performance of the porous medium (EP and
AP) for the PRRB(CB), measurements of the T
air;pre
at
various experimental conditions were performed and
compared. Fig. 12 shows T
air;pre
as a function of heat
input Q
in
with dierent combinations of the EP and AP
for the PRRB(CB). Among them the PRRB(CB) with
both EP and AP installed (s
EP
1:5; s
AP
3) yielded
the strongest dependence of T
air;pre
on Q
in
with the
highest T
air;pre
(up to about 300 C). A similar trend was
found for the other combinations but with smaller
T
air;pre
. In particular, the PRRB(CB) without both EP
and AP installed (s
EP
s
AP
0) gave the lowest T
air;pre
irrespective of the heat input Q
in
, implying that no heat-
recirculation from the exhaust gas to the combustion air
had occurred. It can, therefore, be concluded that the
PRRB(CB) with the combination of both the EP and
AP is the most eective conguration of the PRRB(CB)
in recirculating heat from the exhaust gas to the com-
bustion air.
5.2.3. Eect of optical thickness of the porous medium
Since the radiative heat ux emitted from the emitting
porous medium EP is a function of its optical thickness
s
EP
, s
EP
was increased from 1.5 to 3 by increasing the
number of layers of the wire net that forms the porous
medium. The more radiative heat ux emitted from EP,
as is warranted by a larger temperature drop across the
thickness of the EP (T
EP;u
T
EP;d
) at s
EP
3 than that at
s
EP
1:5 as shown in Fig. 13, the higher T
air;pre
becomes
as shown in Fig. 14. As expected, this can be translated
to a signicant increase in thermal eciency g
th
as
shown in Fig. 15. g
th
of the CB is also included for
comparison. However, a further increase in s
EP
may lead
to a signicant increase in pressure drop of the exhaust
gas owing through the EP, causing poor ventilation
and thus leading to incomplete combustion.
5.3. Further improvement of thermal eciency by the
PRRB(SB)
By replacing the conventional ring burner CB
with the swirling central ame ring burner SB, thermal
eciency g
th
of the PRRB(SB) is greatly enhanced
Fig. 12. Preheated air temperature T
air;pre
at dierent combination of
EP and AP for the PRRB(CB).
Fig. 13. Eect of s
EP
on T
EP;u
and T
EP;d
.
Fig. 14. Eect of s
EP
on T
air;pre
.
588 S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
throughout the experimental range as shown in Fig. 16.
A maximum g
th
of about 60% was realized in compar-
ison to 44% for the PRRB(CB). This signicant increase
in the g
th
is attributed to the combined eect of an ef-
fective heat-recirculation and the swirling central ame
characteristics. Even in the case without the PRRB
structure; i.e. no heat-recirculation being considered, the
SB showed a far better g
th
than that of the CB. This
normal behavior is usually observed for the SB because
it yields a relatively high heat transfer coecient at the
bottom surface of the vessel, especially at high ow ve-
locity [19]. Moreover, the swirling central ame provides
a long residence time for the ame and vessel surface
contact owing to an initially inward ow followed by an
outward ow from the stagnation point along the radial
direction of the bottom surface of the vessel. Also the
swirling central ame covers a larger surface area of the
bottom surface in comparison with the band-form ame
of the CB. These outstanding characteristics of the SB
make its thermal eciency comparable to that of the
PRRB(CB). Undoubtedly, the combination of the SB
with the PRRB, i.e. the PRRB(SB) yields the utmost
requirement in improving thermal eciency in the pre-
sent study. However, low T
air;pre
for the PRRB(SB) in
comparison to that of the PRRB(CB) is observed as
shown in Fig. 17. This normal behavior is true for the
system having better heat transfer characteristics, which
in turn lowered the exhaust gas temperature (T
EP;u
) prior
to entering the EP as shown in Fig. 18.
5.4. Energy saving and eectiveness of combustion air
preheating
Energy saving for the PRRB(CB) and the PRRB(SB)
with respect to the CB were calculated as a function of
heat input Q
in
as shown in Fig. 19. As expected, the
PRRB(SB) yields far higher energy saving than that of
the PRRB(CB). The maximum energy saving of about
50% is realized by the PRRB(SB) and is almost constant
throughout the ranges studied.
In order to characterize the heat-recirculation per-
formance of the porous medium, heat exchanger eec-
tiveness e is adopted rather than the preheated air
temperature T
air;pre
. In this method, the e is dened as
the ratio of the actual enthalpy increase of the com-
bustion air (due to preheating eect) to its maximum
Fig. 15. Eect of s
EP
on g
th
.
Fig. 16. Further improvement of g
th
by the PRRB(SB).
Fig. 18. Comparison of T
EP;u
.
Fig. 17. Comparison of T
air;pre
.
S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592 589
possible enthalpy increase. Fig. 20 shows the depen-
dence of the eectiveness e for both the PRRB(CB) and
the PRRB(SB) on the heat input Q
in
. The PRRB(SB)
shows a lower eectiveness than that of the PRRB(CB)
owing to its highly ecient heat transfer rate from the
ame to the vessel bottom, resulting in lower preheated
air temperature (T
air;pre
) and exhaust gas temperature
(T
EP;u
) as shown in Figs. 17 and 18, respectively. How-
ever, this relatively low eectiveness is not in con-
tradiction to the high thermal eciency for the
PRRB(SB) as shown in Fig. 16 because the low eec-
tiveness e is compensated for by a high combustion
intensity resulting from a high shear stress in the rotat-
ing ow and a prolonged residence time in compari-
son with those of the PRRB(CB) [20,26]. As Q
in
increases, e for both burners tend to increase fol-
lowed by a marked increase in T
air;pre
as shown in Fig.
17. At high Q
in
, the eectiveness of the PRRB(SB) is
seen to approach that of the PRRB(CB) owing to an
increase in ow velocities and reduction in the residence
time.
5.5. Emission characteristics
Figs. 21 and 22, respectively, show dependence of CO
and NO
x
emissions on heat input Q
in
for two dierent
burners PRRB(SB) and PRRB(CB). The PRRB(SB)
emits a slightly higher CO and NO
x
concentrations than
the PRRB(CB) over the range studied. This is true for
the swirling central ame burner SB of which the total
port area is relatively small. This may result in possible
low primary aeration leading to incomplete combustion.
However, it is due to the specially designed SB that very
stable swirling central ame is achieved. Further, good
mixing, prolonged residence time as well as high heat
transfer coecient between the ame and the thermal
load (vessel), assure that no signicant eect of such the
incomplete combustion and local temperature maxima
occurring during combustion of the swirling central
ame. Thus, the PRRB(SB) produced only a negligible
increase in CO and NO
x
in comparison to those of
the PRRB(CB).
Fig. 19. Comparison of energy saving.
Fig. 20. Comparison of heat exchanger eectiveness e.
Fig. 22. Comparison of NO
x
emission.
Fig. 21. Comparison of CO emission.
590 S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592
5.6. Model prediction
Fig. 23 shows comparison between the measured
thermal eciencies and the model prediction ones for
the PRRB(SB). The model predictions yield higher
thermal eciency than those of the measured ones
owing to the imposed assumptions such as complete
combustion, no heat loss from ame to the environment,
etc. However, the dierence in the measured g
th
with the
theoretically estimated one was found to be within ac-
ceptable engineering accuracy (15%). Thus, the model
prediction shows both qualitative and quantitative
agreement with the experimental results.
6. Practical signicance
Based on the porous medium technology and the
swirling central ame burner, a new heat-recirculating,
high thermal eciency burner (i.e. the PRRB(SB)) has
shown a much higher thermal eciency than that of the
conventional burner (CB), which is widely used in do-
mestic around the world. For the sake of energy and
environmental conservation, it is strongly recommended
that replacement of the existing conventional burner
(CB) with the proposed PRRB(SB) for domestic burners
should be immediately implemented, even though some
modications of the existing burner is needed. In the
commercial areas, this new burner concept may nd
applications in the development of highly ecient
burners for small-scale food processing industries for
the purpose of energy savings and mitigation of the
emission pollutants.
7. Conclusions
A novel domestic burner concept based on heat-
recirculating combustion using the porous medium
technology (PRRB) has been developed. The heat
transfer performance and emission characteristics of the
new PRRB were evaluated and compared with those of
the conventional one (CB). Operating parameters such
as heat input, type of the burner heads expected to
control the performance of the new PRRB were clari-
ed. The following conclusions can be drawn from the
experimental results.
1. The proposed PRRB structure using the porous me-
dium technology is very eective in establishing a
heat-recirculating mechanism from the hot exhaust
gas to the combustion air, resulting in ecient air
preheating with a maximum temperature of 300 C.
2. By integrating the existing conventional ring burner
CB with the PRRB (i.e. the PRRB(CB)), thermal
eciency of the new burner PRRB(CB) is increased
to about 12% higher than that of the conventional
one (CB).
3. Based on the swirling central ame ring burner SB,
further improvement in thermal eciency of the bur-
ner can be realized. The combination of the PRRB
with the SB (i.e. the PRRB(SB)) yields a maximum
thermal eciency of about 60%: about twice as high
as that of the conventional burner CB, resulting in an
energy saving of about 50% per cent on average over
the operating range.
4. The proposed PRRB(SB) provides not only high
thermal eciency and considerable improvement in
energy saving but also environmentally compatible
emissions, since it yields insignicant changes in the
emission characteristics in comparison to that of the
PRRB(CB).
5. With the model proposed, the calculated thermal e-
ciencies of the PRRB(SB) can be predicted and agree
well with the experimental ones.
8. Recommendation and future research needs
Much work remains to be done to further improving
thermal eciency of the PRRB equipped with the con-
cept of the swirling central ame burner SB. In partic-
ular, a better understanding is needed of ame structure
of the proposed burner PRRB(SB), which can be con-
sidered as a turbulent premixed impinging ame since
the ame is semi-conned in the sense that it is strongly
deected by the vessel bottom. It has been reported that
premixed turbulent impinging ame can exist in dierent
eight modes [23] and dierent combustion modes (such
as disc and ring ame) may be established even under
identical burner ow conditions, thus, aecting the
heat transfer characteristics and the burner thermal
eciency. The combustion regime of each combustion
mode is sensitive to a range of variables, especially a
ratio of burner-to-surface separation distance to burner
diameter. Even though the ratio is kept constant, it
is not actually constant in the sense that it is strongly
Fig. 23. Comparison of g
th
.
S. Jugjai, N. Rungsimuntuchart / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 26 (2002) 581592 591
aected by the ame length, which is varied with the
heat input. Ignition conditions, global stretch rate and
turbulence structure are also important parameters af-
fecting structure of the combustion ame. It is recom-
mended that future development of the present burner
system is extremely required complete understanding the
heat transfer characteristics of the various combustion
modes of the impinging ame. This is an important step
toward their full utilization and optimization design for
thermal eciency and emission characteristics for the
future burner.
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