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RECENTLY COMPLETED OR CURRENTLY ACTIVE PROJECTS ACROSS FCT COMBUSTION INCLUDE:

Americas

Lehigh Evansville, PA, USA. Kilns 1 and 2 – Gyro-Therm kiln burners for natural gas, coal/petcoke and SAF. The supply included BMS, valve trains, fans and other accessories. The system was commissioned successfully.

Undisclosed client, WI, USA. 40 MW complete hot gas generation system for operation at 3,000F without refractory lining. The supply includes valve train, BMS and fan.

Ash Grove, Durkee, OR, USA. Gyro-Therm kiln burner for natural gas firing.

Lafarge Canada Exshaw, AB, Canada. Gyro-Therm kiln burner for natural gas firing.

Votorantim Cimentos, Vidal Ramos, Brazil. Upgrade on hot gas generator for improved burning efficiency.

Graymont Western Delta, UT. Trolley mounted pre-heating burner with fan, valve train, ignition and flame detection system.

Undisclosed client, Brazil. 36 burners systems including valve trains and local control panels.

UCEM, Chimborazo, Ecuador. Complete clay drying system, including fluidized bed hot gas generator with petcoke feeding, triple shell rotary dryer, bag filter and fans.

CSN Cimentos – Arcos, Brazil. Turbu-Jet AF burners with blowers, ignition and flame detection systems.

Clay drying system supply for Chimborazo plant, Ecuador

Europe

Gorka Cement, Trzebinia Plant, Poland. Gyro-Therm burner with an automated control for a long wet cement kiln.

Undisclosed client, France. CFD of kiln with special attention on coating and refractory temperature and NOx generation.

CBR Cimenteries, Antoing Plant, Belgium. Burner upgrade. Burner modification to improve performance leading to higher output and lower specific fuel consumption. Also allows for oxygen usage and higher AF usage.

Kerneos, Le Teil Plant, France. New burner system for kiln producing high alumina clinker: including accessories, igniter, flame sensor, valve train, compressor and BMS. Main target is to modernize the plant and reduce NOx emissions.

Imerys, Vatutine, Ukraine. New burner system for kiln producing chamotte, including accessories, igniter, flame sensor, primary air fan and trolley. Main target is to increase the solid alternative fuels firing in the kiln while keeping emissions under control and to modernize the plant.

Erdemir Mining Industry & Trade – Ermaden Group, Sivas, Turkey. New burner system for iron ore pelletizing kiln including accessories, natural gas and fuel oil valve trains and BMS engineering. Main target is to modernize the plant and allow simultaneous usage of fuel oil and natural gas while keeping emissions under control.

Asia-Pacific

Undisclosed client, China. 56 iron ore pellet kiln burner systems firing coke oven gas.

Vinacomin, Quan Trieu Cement Plant, Vietnam. Turbu-Jet AF burner firing low calorific value coal with fuel oil.

Cement Industries of Malaysia Berhad (CIMA), Perlis Plant, Malaysia. Turbu-Jet AF burner with primary air blower and trolley assessment for kiln line no. 2.

SinoSteel Equipment and Engineering Company, Algeria. 30 iron ore pellet kiln burner systems including valve trains and BMS systems.

The Turbu-Jet AF burner for the CIMA Perlis plant

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Americas

Adriano Greco, CEO FCT Combustion Inc, was pleased to attend the Alternative Raw Materials and Fuels Conference in Cancun in February.

FCT Combustion presented and exhibited at the 60th Annual IEEE-IAS/PCA Cement Industry Technical Conference in Nashville, May 6-10.

Europe

FCT Industries’ Managing Director, Con Manias, and Joel Maia, Technical Director FCT Combustion GmbH, attended the 12th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition in Berlin on February 20 and 21.

The annual conference is an excellent opportunity for those within the cement and lime industries to keep abreast of the latest innovations regarding the use of alternative fuels.

Mr Manias was awarded the accolade of ‘CemFuels Personality of the Year’ at the event, in recognition of his significant impact and achievements within the industry.

With previous recipients including Dirk Letchenberg, Jan Theulan, Professor Fred Lockwood, and Eric Hansen, Mr Manias is certainly among good company in winning the award.

Asia-Pacific

FCT Combustion Asia Pacific CEO, Jordan Parham, and Asia Pacific General Manager, Roger Hassold, attended the 25th AFCM Technical Symposium 2018 in Indonesia in April.
Mr Hassold gave a well-received presentation featuring FCT Combustion’s latest innovation, the Turbu-Flex burner. Attendees were excited to learn about the Turbu-Flex’s convenient ability to effortlessly adapt to different fuels within the one burner, saving plant operators time and money.

Other recent highlights include:

• Jordan Parham attendedASEAN-SME Conference in Sydney in March.
• AnIndonesian trade mission visited FCT’s Adelaide offices in May.
• Roger Hassold met with Dr Nguyen Quang Cung, President of the Vietnamese National Cement Association, on March 9.

Upcoming events include:

• Roger Hassold will be presenting at the Cemtech Asia Conference in Hanoi, June 24-27.
• Jordan Parham will be attending the International Lithium Conference in Perth, June 27–28.

This is a vital new breakthrough for cement plant operators and kiln engineers. Alternative Fuels (AF) are attractive as cost effective sources of fuel but have created challenges. FCT Combustion spoke with global customers to develop a deep understanding about these challenges.

The fundamentals are:

• Switching between different fuels can make it harder to manage quality.
• Fuel savings can be lost with lower production.
• It is difficult to maintain low rates of NOx emissions.

To address these challenges, FCT Combustion developed the Turbu-FlexTM burner, which is based on the successful Turbu-Jet AF burner, a technology that has delivered exceptional value for many years across hundreds of global installations.

The new Turbu-FlexTM burner has the flexibility to fire both 100% conventional solid fuel and very high levels of varying AF, while maintaining production output, quality and low NOx emissions under all circumstances, to truly realize the value of fuel cost reduction.

In short – realize the probability of AF, without compromising on plant operations.

Features and benefits:

• No moving parts in the burner or faceplate – to ensure trouble-free operation and ensure primary air injection is known precisely.
• AF Boost valve at the rear of the burner controls split to axial primary air for control of secondary air entrainment and flame temperature.
• Swirl valve is used to control the swirl number.
• Blower speed is used to control total primary air, and, hence, burner impulse.

The new Turbu-FlexTM burner has demonstrated in the field its ability to optimize the profitability of alternative fuel, with lowest possible fuel costs and optimal kiln performance. The first deployment has been firing on very high levels of Refuse Derived Fuels (RDF) in a cement processing plant since August 2017 and delivering exceptional results.

Figure 1: The first installed Turbu-FlexTM burner

Burner design based on proven and scientifically validated techniques.

FCT Combustion has been employing a variety of modelling techniques to develop burner designs since its inception in 1984. In particular, FCT Combustion uses Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to compare the performance of different burner designs in rotary kilns. In order to develop the Turbu-FlexTM burner, they conducted an extensive CFD investigation that assessed the effect of the number, distribution and arrangement of axial and swirl primary air holes. These are the key design variables that control axial and swirl momentum and hence burner impulse, secondary air entrainment, mixing and flame shape.

This identified that grouping holes close together changes the secondary air entrainment, and hence, flame temperature and NOx. In particular, halving the number of axial air holes results in an ~7% increase in peak radiation and NOx and a further ~7% (peak radiation and NOx) when the holes are grouped together.

A burner with the flexibility for adjustment of axial air configuration can optimize combustion, depending on fuel and emissions requirements – i.e. a high number of axial holes can help suppress NOx formation, while a small number of holes grouped together is ideal for co-firing AF.

Figure 2: Axial primary air hole configurations

Figure 3: Changes in NOx and radiation heat transfer to clinker for different axial primary air hole configurations, relative to 36 evenly spaced axial holes

Secondary air flow lines 2x burner diameters down stream of the burner tip. Lines colored by velocity.

Standard Mode

AF Boost Mode

Figure 4: Standard Mode versus AF Boost Mode

Figure 5: Flame radiation to clinker for coal and RDF

1. 100% coal firing in Standard Mode provides a very good radiation profile for high quality clinker production.
2. At 50% RDF co-firing in Standard Mode, the peak heat flux drops, and more heat is transferred to the clinker further up the kiln.
3. In AF Boost Mode, there is a 5% increase in radiation in the first 5 kiln diameters.
4. AF Boost Mode significantly increases peak radiation in the first 5 kiln diameters.
5. AF Boost Mode also significantly increases the peak radiation for 100% coal.

The benefits to plant managers are clear – with the flexibility to effortlessly switch between fuels, the new Turbu-FlexTM burner ensures lowest fuel costs and highest kiln performance.

With the Turbu-FlexTM burner changes in fuel can be made easily and with certainty about the outcome – as expressed in fuel use, NOx, and product quality – all from the one burner.

Download the full AFCM article here

Maximizing alternate fuels using modeling and flexible burner design

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