Abstract: Numerical simulation is applied to study the fluid flow, combustion and heat transfer in the radiation chamber of the conventional reforming furnace and the new-type reforming furnace. Through simulation calculation, this paper obtains the detailed information about the flow field, temperature field and hot strength distribution of furnace tube surface in the radiation chamber of these two types of reforming furnaces. The simulation results show that it can improve the flow field uniformity on the same height section of the radiation chamber to adopt the double-sided radiant furnace with gas wall and set burners on both sides of the gas wall in the center of the radiation chamber, which is beneficial to the uniform distribution of tube heat flux in the circumferential direction and prevents furnace tube deformation caused by uneven heating in such direction. Meanwhile, the next optimization direction of heating furnace shall be focused on the attempt to change the burner types to further resolve the uneven distribution of flue gas temperature along the longitudinal direction of the furnace tube and hot strength on the surface of the furnace tube.

Key words: reforming heating furnace, combustion, furnace types, numerical simulation