Modeling & Testing

Hamworthy Peabody Combustion’s state-of-the-art Advanced Technology Center offers both SMARTflow™ CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and SMARTflow Physical Flow Modeling. The facilities in the United States and Europe play a central role in both the development of new burner technology and for customizing and demonstrating burners for customer specific requirements.

The Center is comprised of 16 test furnaces allowing the simulation of burner installations up to 300 mmbtu/hr and a diversity of applications including boilers, petrochemical process heaters and flares. Numerous fuel systems allow the simulation of any blend of liquid or gaseous fuel. It also has the capability for application of photographic and thermo graphic techniques to ascertain flame temperature profiles.

The facility includes a visitor center with viewing monitors and IT facilities to facilitate customer attendance to witness burner demonstrations.

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SMARTflow

CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) can be used to quickly and accurately model critical parameters in the design, analysis and troubleshooting of critical combustion processes.

  • Flow of multiple fluids (e.g., fuels, air, flue gases, etc.) and their interaction
  • Temperature, heat release patterns and heat transfer
  • Velocity
  • Flame dynamics, shape and interactions
  • Emissions
  • Particle size

SMARTflow Physical Flow Modeling’s most common application is combustion air flow. Burner design and performance is based on three assumptions and flow modeling assures that what actually takes place will correspond to these assumptions.

  • each burner (applicable in multi-burner systems) gets equal amounts of air flow
  • air enters the burner evenly around the periphery of the burner
  • air enters the burner radially, that is, with no tangential components

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Results of the SMARTflow modeling and testing include:

  • air flow patterns are modeled
  • air flow patterns are corrected and verified
  • burner designs are optimized to ensure complete combustion (new or retrofit)
  • burner designs become more efficient (CO2 impact, fuel efficiency)

 

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