A New Simplified Zonal Method for Furnace Thermal Radiation Calculation Based on Imaginary Planes

When solving the complex radiative heat transfer problems in reheating furnaces, there are a number of difficulties with the traditional zonal methods. To circumvent these difficulties, a new simplified method was proposed, which employed imaginary planes, referred to as the imaginary plane model. With the new model, crown wall reduction process was simplified. Therefore, every model zone could be treated as a closed square cavity. It could also solve the problem of radiative blocking in industrial furnaces more effectively. Besides, the new imaginary plane based model may lead to a problem that the denominator was zero. This problem was solved by transforming the expressions of reflex heat flux in the model. The model was capable of dealing with the systems that included black surfaces. The model was validated by considering the heat transfer in a reheating furnace where the temperature fields in the furnace chamber (including the steel, wall and gas) were obtained. A detailed comparison was made between the simulation and the black box experiment. The results show that the new model developed was valid and accurate.