The goal of this article is to improve your awareness of resources that exist to help you make better sense of combustion-related issues and answer your combustion-related questions.

If combustion and its related efficiencies were not challenging for most of us, we and others would not dedicate so many new resources to the topic. This article will point out some of these available resources, including the pages of Industrial Heating.

Over the years, improved efficiencies have been demanded by both users of combustion systems and agencies regulating these users. NOx and CO₂ reductions are examples, and addressing efficiencies is key for newer systems.    

Industry Publications

We will start out by mentioning and discussing several publications that address combustion. 

Energy Management for the Metals Industry

Written by Cynthia Belt, this 2017 CRC Press resource is hot off the press. A 205-page, soft-cover book aimed at managers, engineers and supervisors working in the metals industry, it offers specifics that can help readers in our industry achieve energy savings for their companies. This book:

• Emphasizes information crucial to the metals industry.
• Describes the benefits and reasons for starting an energy management program and what you need to start one.
• Covers defining and measuring performance, setting baselines and benchmarking a plant and its processes.
• Discusses analyzing data, identifying projects, improving processes, setting goals and creating an action plan.
• Covers controlling and evaluating progress.
• Helps the reader understand energy measurements including electricity, natural gas and critical KPIs.
• Includes real-world examples and warns of potential pitfalls.

No stranger to IH readers, Belt contributed an article titled “Save Money by Optimizing Your Furnace Burner Fire Rate.” It can be found in the April 2014 online archives.

Combustion Engineering (second edition)

The second edition of Combustion Engineering (2011) from CRC Press adds information on efficiency improvements, emission reductions and biomass utilization. The book provides a balance of combustion fundamentals and combustion-engineering applications of gaseous, liquid and solid fuels.

Eight chapters address the fundamentals of combustion, and the remaining eight chapters apply these fundamentals to furnaces, fixed-bed and fluidized-bed combustion and more. Numerous tables include practical data and formulae as well as extensive example problems, chapter-end problems and references.

The John Zink Hamworthy Combustion Handbook

The John Zink Hamworthy Combustion Handbook (2001) was significantly revised from a single volume to three volumes.

Volume 1 (from CRC Press) covers the fundamentals. It provides concepts and up-to-date information on industrial combustion science and engineering. I personally own this volume, and it contains many color illustrations and photos to help explain its contents.

Volume 2 is titled “Design and Operations,” and it provides a definitive “field manual” for operators, engineers and managers working in industrial combustion-oriented industries. Coverage includes testing, installation, maintenance and troubleshooting of combustion systems. It includes more than 600 color illustrations and photographs.

Volume 3, titled “Applications,” appears to cover applications that would be low in temperature for the readers of Industrial Heating. Suffice to say, however, the latest, much-expanded revision of this handbook should be able to assist you with many of your combustion-related challenges.

Experimental Combustion – An Introduction

This 2014 text from CRC Press strives to help readers understand the basic skills of combustion in order for them to design and develop energy-efficient and low-emission combustion systems that can meet heating demands while minimizing ecological impacts.

Like Combustion Engineering, it is intended to be used as a textbook, and it offers both review questions and problems at the end of each chapter. This one seems a bit too theoretical for many of our readers, but I’m sure it could be of use for a portion of our audience.

Atmosphere Heat Treatment (Volumes I and II)

While not a combustion book, Daniel H. Herring’s two-book series, Atmosphere Heat Treatment, might be all the combustion coverage some of us need. One section of chapter 4 (Volume I) covers “Combustion Systems,” providing fundamentals as well as practical coverage of burner tuning, types of burners, monitoring the process and sizing a combustion system. 

In Volume 2, chapter 9 is “Furnace Atmospheres,” which reviews all atmosphere options, including combustion reactions. Add this to all of the other practical advice offered in this two-volume reference book, and it’s worth obtaining a copy for yourself. You can order your own copy by going to www.industrialheating.com/AHT. Save 35% by buying both volumes now.

Industrial Heating Resources

Combustion is a regular topic covered in IH. Over the course of a year, it is included in at least four different print issues. If you are looking for combustion-specific articles or other content, please search our website or locate “Combustion & Burners” or “Industrial Gases & Atmospheres” on our “Topics” tab. 

Looking at the most recent combustion articles, we find the following:

• “Aluminum Scrap Recycling with Twin-Chamber Melting Furnace” (February 2017)
• “How to Maximize Burner Efficiency” (June 2016)
• “Radiant Tube Combustion System Upgrade at Akron Steel Treating” (April 2016)
• “Ultra-Low-NOx Burner Retrofits for Aluminum Furnaces” (February 2016)

Combustion Concepts

Were you aware that we ran a column series called “Combustion Concepts” authored by expert Art Morris? Aluminum heating was used as a practical application throughout, and you can still find them in the drop-down list on the “Columns” tab of our website. Each of these columns, covering topics such as burner analysis, exothermic atmospheres and available combustion heat, also contained an Excel workbook, which can be used to better understand your combustion system. 

Combustion Tool Kit

Back in 2008, we produced this Tool Kit as an insert in our February issue. It included some general engineering data, information on industrial gases, and fuels and flue data. Throughout the Tool Kit, useful tips were included from Eclipse’s “20 Tips for Combustion System Care” booklet.

In addition to the useful graphs, tables and charts, the Tool Kit incorporated several practical articles. The data included is basically evergreen, so we are making the Combustion Tool Kit available to you in a digital format. 

You can link to it at www.industrialheating.com/CTK.

Summary

Our objective in this article was to present you with some combustion-related reference resources. If you simply search our website (www.industrialheating.com) for “combustion,” you will find over 800 results. The term “burner” leads to 550 results. Clearly, our website provides a very useful source of information on this and many other topics of interest in the field we call industrial heating. 

For more information:  Contact Reed Miller, editor, Industrial Heating, Manor Oak One, Suite #450, 1910 Cochran Rd., Pgh., PA 15220; tel: 412-306-4360; fax: 248-502-2099; e-mail: reed@industrialheating.com; web: www.industrialheating.com