Analysis on energy consumption and performance of reheating furnaces in a hot strip mill

Energy consumption and performance of reheating furnaces in a hot strip mill is analyzed by means of both numerical predictions and practical measurements in this study. In the numerical part, three different heating curves representing various heating rates of the furnaces are simulated and compared with each other. The results indicate that increasing production rate of the furnaces is conducive to utilizing fuel more efficiently. In the practical aspect, when the furnaces are treated as a system, the measurements reveal that near 80% of heat in the furnaces is contributed by fuel combustion and 15.7% by hot flue gas. It follows that energy recovery via heat exchanger plays an important role in energy management. Furthermore, the practical measurements suggest that the efficiencies of heat exchange and heat recovery in the recuperating zone are 86.66% and 47.76%, respectively. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.