Assessment of combustion models of a self-regenerative flameless oxidation burner

Diluted combustion, also called Flameless Oxidation, has been a major interest in the advanced combustion technologies, as it is a very effective way to abate NOx production in high temperature gas fired furnaces using preheated combustion air [1-4]. These techniques are based on the high dilution of reactants by the recirculation of hot burnt gases in the reaction zone. As a consequence, temperature gradients are lowered, and NOx emission drops. Besides NOx production, these techniques also modify flame characteristics as well as heat transfer: the reaction zone is wider, the temperature field is more uniform over the furnace and the reaction occurs without visible appearance. The application to industrial processes still requires basic experimental data and developments in modeling techniques in order to be able to predict furnace performance. The present study assesses the aptitude of existing combustion models to reproduce the distribution of temperature and major species inside the furnace by comparison with experimental data.