The implementation of a virtual engineering system at John Zink Company, LLC is starting to change the engineering and development processes for industrial combustion equipment. This system is based on the virtual engineering software called VE-Suite being developed at the Virtual Reality Applications Center (VRAC) of Iowa State University. The goal of the John Zink virtual engineering system is to provide a virtual platform where product design, system engineering, computer simulation, and pilot plant test converge in a virtual space to allow engineers to make sound engineering decisions. Using the virtual engineering system, design engineers are able to inspect the layout of individual components and the system integration through an immersive stereo 3D visualization interface. This visualization tool allows the engineer not only to review the integration of subsystems, but also to review the entire plant layout and to identify areas where the design can be improved. One added benefit is to significantly speed up the design review process and improve the turn around time and efficiency of the review process. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is used extensively at John Zink to evaluate, improve, and optimize various combustion equipment designs and new product development. Historically, design and product development engineers relied on CFD experts to interpret simulation results. With the implementation of the virtual engineering system, engineers at John Zink are able to assess the performance of their designs using the CFD simulation results from a first person perspective. The virtual engineering environment provided in VE-Suite greatly enhances the value of CFD simulation and allows engineers to gain much needed process insights in order to make sound engineering decisions in the product design, engineering, and development processes. Engineers at John Zink are now focusing on taking the virtual engineering system to the next level: to allow for real-time changes in product design coupled with high-speed computer simulation along with test data to optimize product designs and engineering. It is envisioned that, when fully implemented, the virtual engineering system will be integrated into the overall engineering process at John Zink to deliver products of the highest quality to its customers and significantly shorten the development cycle time for a new generation of highly efficient and environmentally friendly combustion products.

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Most new duct burners are supplied to heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) manufacturers for use in cogeneration systems. Key components of a simple cycle cogeneration plant include a turbine, generator, turbine exhaust gas duct, duct burner (optional), HRSG and downstream flue gas cleaning equipment. New developments in gas turbine technology are changing the boundary conditions for supplemental firing. In response, John Zink has an ongoing research project for the development of new duct burners achieving ultra low NOx emissions maintaining a good flame quality. The scope of this research work includes computational fluid dynamic modeling (CFD) and experimental testing of current design duct burner to obtain baseline data comparable with CFD results, and various experimental configurations through a full range of expected operating conditions. Experimental testing is performed in a test furnace at John Zink Company, Tulsa. Turbine exhaust gas (TEG) is simulated using John Zink Duct burners, which are supplied with air from a combustion air fan. Different O2 levels can be achieved by a combined water/steam injection. The temperature level of the TEG to the test burner can be adjusted with an air-cooled heat exchanger. Temperature and concentration measurements can be made at the test burner location and in the stack. Flame length, as well as NOx and CO emissions were measured for each data point. CFD modeling focused on the performance effects of turbine exhaust gas flow mal-distribution and the investigation on how reliable CFD models are, regarding flame stability calculations and NOx production. The results of this comprehensive testing and results from the CFD calculations will be compared and presented.

A double fired process heater with combination oil/gas burners has been modeled with computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The process heater was simulated with two configurations: 1) with internal walls, and 2) without internal walls. The purpose of this study is to understand the effect of the internal walls on flame shape and process tube heat flux. As a result of removing the internal wall, furnace currents are allowed to have a large influence on the flame patterns and the flames lean toward the tubes. It is also shown that higher localized heat fluxes occur on the process tubes with the walls removed. This study demonstrates that the primary function of the internal walls is to isolate cells within the furnace which create satisfactory process tube heat fluxes.

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