Application of Combustion Principles to Domestic Gas Burner Design

205 Pages·1990·4.16 MB·English

by  H.r.n. Jones

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THE APPLICATION OF COMBUSTION
PRINCIPLES TO
DOMESTIC GAS BURNER DESIGN
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THE APPLICATION OF
COMBUSTION PRINCIPLES TO
DOMESTIC GAS BURNER DESIGN
H.R.N. Jones , MA, PhD, CEng, MIGasE
British Gas Teaching Fellow, University of
Cambridge

E. & F.N.Spon, London and New York
in association with British Gas plc
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First published 1989
by E. & F.N. Spon Ltd
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
and 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
in association with British Gas plc
Research and Technology Division, 152 Grosvenor Road,
London SW1V 3JL
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or
Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
© 1989 British Gas plc
ISBN 0-203-47313-2 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-78137-6 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0 419 14800 0 (Print Edition)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted, or repro
duced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other
means, now known or hereinafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Jones, H.R.N. (Howard Richard Neil), 1957
The application of combustion principles
to domestic gas burner design
I. Household gas appliances. Combustion equipment
1. Title
683’.88
ISBN 0-419 -14800-0
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Foreword
It is a great pleasure to write a foreword to this excellent book. The gas industry is almost
two hundred years old and for the first hundred years was dependent on a very
elementary understanding of the combustion process. The advent of the premixed flame
by Bunsen, the concept of burning velocity and the development of the chemistry of the
combustion mechanism by Hinshelwood and by Semenov in the 1920s and 1930s formed
the basis of our present day understanding of the fundamentals of combustion. Bone and
Townend’s Flame and Combustion in Gases in 1927 was the first major text on
combustion and flame structure and heralded an enormous expansion of combustion
research. However, our understanding of flame propagation, with its complex interaction
of chemistry and aerodynamics, still remains incomplete at the present time.
The ever increasing demand for higher efficiency and precise controllability coupled
with more stringent pollutant emission requirements imposes considerable pressures on
combustion research and development. The gas industry enjoys a strong position here,
but nevertheless recognises the need to continue to develop its technology. The advances
over the past two decades have been considerable as is made clear by this textbook, but
further developments in our understanding of combustion aerodynamics will make a
significant impact in future years. This book gives a comprehensive account of one
specialist area of combustion, that of domestic gas burner design, which is only briefly
discussed in existing combustion and flame textbooks. It covers not only existing burners
but also future domestic burners, and is therefore greatly welcomed.
Professor A.Williams
Department of Fuel and Energy
The Houldsworth School of Applied Sciences
University of Leeds
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Preface
The use of gas as a fuel has increased dramatically throughout the world during the last
thirty years. In many countries this has been primarily due to the development of natural
gas resources as a replacement for the older and, in many cases, declining manufactured
gas industries. Great Britain is no exception, especially in the domestic sector, where,
since conversion to natural gas, there has been a marked rise in both the number of
customers and annual gas consumption. Gas combustion research has played a key role in
this rapidly expanding market, particularly with respect to advances in appliance design.
These advances are manifest in two areas: firstly through the increase in appliance
efficiency which has been demanded in an ever more energy-conscious age; secondly,
and arguably more important, through developments in burner design, without which
neither the remarkable success of conversion nor the introduction of today’s compact and
highly efficient appliances could have been achieved.
Much fundamental work in combustion and burner design for domestic natural gas
appliances has been published in the form of scientific papers. This volume brings
together much of that work, and is aimed at both the student and the qualified engineer.
After an opening chapter, which provides relevant definitions and some basic combustion
chemistry, four chapters discuss, in some detail, design aspects of the three most
commonly encountered types of burner (non-aerated, partially aerated and fully aerated)
together with some more unusual burner systems. Chapter 6 considers the application of
these design aspects to various domestic appliances, in particular the constraints which
must be placed on any practical design of burner, while in Chapter 7, burner control
systems are discussed with special emphasis given to safety, ease of appliance operation
and methods of maintaining high efficiency.
A book such as this would be impossible to produce without the assistance of a number
of people at the British Gas Watson House Research Station who have worked on many
of the aspects described herein. I wish to thank, in particular, Mr J.J.F.Flood, Mr K.J.A.
Hargreaves, Mr J.A.Harris and members past and present of the Gas Characteristics
Group and the Advanced Combustion Systems and Controls Group for many useful
discussions on individual topics. Additionally, thanks are due to Dr N.C.Ross, Dr
R.South, Dr A.H. Curran, Dr M.B.Green, Dr M.C.Patterson (all of Watson House), Mr N.
Flicker (Midlands Research Station), Prof. A.Williams (Leeds University), Mr
R.Wakefield (British Gas HQ) and Dr R.Pritchard (Salford University) for their
comments on the completed manuscript.
Special thanks are due also to Miss N.O’Brien for her care and patience whilst typing
the original draft manuscript and for coping so admirably with subsequent textual
rearrangements and revisions.
H.R.N.Jones
January 1989
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Contents

1 Combustion fundamentals and gas properties 1
2 Non-aerated burners 18
3 Partially aerated burners 31
4 Fully aerated burners 79
5 Future domestic burners 109
6 Burners in appliances 126
7 Burner controls 151

References 178
Subject index 182
Author index 188
Index of symbols 194
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