Modelling of An Industrial Blast Furnance Using Finite Element Method

Approximately 75 % of energy consumption in petrochemical and refining industries is used by furnaces and heaters. Ambient air conditions (pressure, temperature and relative humidity) and operational conditions such as combustion air preheating and using excess air for combustion, can affect the furnace efficiency. If the furnaces are operated at optimized conditions, the huge amounts of savings in energy consumptions would be achieved. By modeling and optimizing of a furnace the optimal operation conditions can be obtained. The aim of this paper is providing a mathematical model which is able to calculate furnace efficiency with change in operating and combustion air conditions. In our project we deal with a simple but realistic optimization problem. We have to nd the optimal temperature of an industrial furnace in which are made resin pieces, such as car bumpers. The heating system is based on electric resistances, and the rst part of this study is to compute the temperature eld inside the oven when the values of the resistances are known. This work is called the direct problem the resistances- values are known and the temperature eld is unknown. It is important here to emphasize that the mechanical properties of the bumper depend on the temperature during the cooking, so the second part of the study is devoted to computing the resistances- values in order to maintain the bumper temperature at the -good- value. This optimization problem is called an inverse problem the temperature is an input and the resistances values are outputs. The computation of the temperature eld is performed with the nite element method.