Numerical Study of the Effects of Structural and Functional Parameters on Unmixed Combustion of Natural Gas in Three Radiant Tubes with Different Geometries

In the present study, with the aid of computational fluid dynamics tools three different radiant tubes including straight, u-shape and w-shape were compared. After designing the geometry, the grids generated for geometries in Gambit software. Grid independence was also performed for the W-shaped geometry, which was the most complex geometry. Firstly, the results showed that the amount of nitrogen oxide emission in the U-shaped radiant tube is the highest compared to direct and W-shaped radiant tubes and the lowest was in the W-shaped type. W-shaped radiant tube had the highest efficiency (55.3%) among all radiant tubes. Besides, the ratio of radiant heat transfer from the tube wall surface to the total heat transfer from it in all three types of radiant tubes was high and more than 90%. By moving away from the wall of the radiant tube in all tubes, the amount of radiation per unit area decreases. Furthermore, the highest amount of radiation intensity was devoted to the W-shaped tube, then the U-shaped tube, and finally the lowest amount was related to the direct tube.