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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

GENERALITY

Reasons for tuning the combustion

‐ To optimize the energy consumption: not too
much air, not too much fuel.
‐ To ensure safety: bad combustion generates
CO which could be lethal.
‐ To optimize the radiant-tubes lifetime: rich
combustion produce CO but also pure C, the
C penetrates into the tubes material and
makes it fragile.
‐ To optimize the fumes ducts lifetimes: same
as for radiant tubes, moreover, post
combustion in the ducts causes rapid
destruction of ducts which amplifies more and
more the problem.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Objective of the combustion tuning

Ensure that each firing burner develops a
slightly oxidising combustion: small excess of
combustion air in order to maintain to 4…6%
of residual O2 in the fumes.

Steps of combustion tuning

Following steps should be followed:
‐ Balance the fuel gas supply among all
burners and ensure that the nominal gas flow
can be reached for each heating zone.
‐ Balance the combustion air ingress among all
burners in order to ensure the same residual
O2 content in the POC.
‐ Adjust the combustion equations parameters:
k1, k2, ra1, ra2

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Preconditions for correct operation

- Fumes ducts are tight from burner outlets up

to the fumes zone flow control valve.
- Burner heat recuperators are tight (no short
circuit leading the air directly into the exhaust
duct).
- Burner heat recuperators are not bent into
the radiant tubes → possibility to insert the O2
analyser sampling tube.
- All the burner adjustment orifices (air & fuel
gas) are placed and not damaged.
‐ In-situ fumes O2 analysers working properly.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

COMBUSTION ADJUSTMENT
PROCEDURE

Generality
The adjustment is performed zone by zone and
can be divided into 4 steps:
1. Fuel gas balancing among the burners
2. Combustion air balancing among the
burners
3. k1, k2 coefficients adjustment (most
significant parameters)
4. Ra1 & Ra2 coefficients adjustment
(facultative).

Burner adjustment requires to work at high

capacity and in manual mode (forcing), in order
to avoid any zone shutdown because of too high
temperature, the operators on the furnace should
always be in contact with the operators in the
control room.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Step 1 - Fuel gas balancing

Objective:
Adjust for each burner the fuel flow in order to
match the nominal burner power.
Procedure:
1. All pilot & main burners should fire.
2. Manually fix the fumes FCV wide open in
order to ensure enough air in each burner.
3. Manually open the fuel gas FCV at 100%
4. For each burner, adjust the throttle orifice in
order to match the required ∆Pr
(corresponding to the nominal flow).
5. Repeat the step 4 at least 2 times.
6. Verify that the zone gas flow matches the
zone nominal flow; if lower the feeding
pressure should be increased; a slightly
higher value would not be critical since the
burner flow-orifices are not of high accuracy
but are used for balancing.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Step 2 - Combustion air balancing

Objective:
Adjust for each burner the air flow in order to
match a certain residual O2 content in fumes.
Procedure:
1. All pilot & main burners should fire.
2. The fumes extraction control loop should
work in automatic.
3. Manually open the fuel gas FCV in order to
reach the nominal fuel gas flow.
4. Switch off the “O2 correction” function.
5. Manually fix the fumes FCV opening in
order to read 5% of O2; in case the in-situ
analyser would not work, fix the fumes FCV
at 80%.
6. For each burner, insert the portable
analyser sampling tube deeply enough
underneath the burner’s recuperator (in
order to be upstream any possible air leak
ingress), adjust the air flap in order to
measure 6% O2; CO should be lower than
100 ppm.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

7. Repeat the step 5 at least 2 times.

At the end of step 2, it is recommended to verify

if the fuel gas is still correctly balanced;
especially when the combustion has not been
done for a long time, step 2 may slightly disturb
the fuel supply.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Step 3 – Parameter adjustment – k1

Objective:
Ensure that the calculation of the fumes flow
(matches with the nominal fuel gas flow).
Procedure:
1. All pilot & main burners should fire.
2. Set k2 = 0
3. Switch off the “O2 correction” function.
4. Manually open the fuel gas FCV in order to
reach the nominal fuel gas flow.
5. Set the O2 set-point value (4…6%).
6. Manually adjust the fumes FCV in order to
reach the O2 set-point value (doing so
ensures that the air & gas previously
balanced among the burners are burning
according to the objective).
7. When the O2 values match together, adjust
k1 so that the calculated Qfumes gas equivalent =
measured fuel gas flow.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Step 3 – Parameter adjustment – k2

Objective:
Ensure that the calculation of the fumes flow
compensates the burner imperfections at low
flow.
Procedure:
1. All pilot & main burners should fire.
2. Fumes flow and gas flow controllers work in
automatic mode.
3. Switch off the “O2 correction” function
4. Manually set the zone load controller at
100% and decrease the value by step of
20%.
5. The O2 measured by the in-situ analyser will
normally decrease.
6. Around 20% of the load, adjust k2 in order
to recover a correct O2 measure.

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

Step 4 – Adjustment of Ra1 & Ra2

Objective:
Ensure that the not-firing burner are correctly
taken into account.
Procedure:
1. All pilot & main burners should fire.
2. Switch off the “O2 correction” function.
3. Set Ra1 = Ra2 = 0
4. Fumes flow and gas flow controllers work in
automatic mode.
5. Manually set the zone load controller at
100%, the O2 measured with the in-situ
analyser should match the O2 set-point
value.
6. Stop the maximum pilot burners that could
be stopped without causing a zone
shutdown.
7. Wait at least 15 min; the O2 measured will
drift
8. Adjust Ra2 so that the calculated Qfumes gas
equivalent = measured fuel gas flow (low
reaction time !).

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TRAINING MI199
Combustion Adjustment March 2014

9. Adjust Ra1 in order to recover a correct O2

measure (low reaction time !).
10. Ra1 and Ra2 values should be very
close, a significant difference would indicate
that the equipment does not work properly
(air intakes, bad adjustment, …).

In case all the pilot are not working, k1 and k2

adjustment should be performed with Ra1 = Ra2
= 1.7

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