DEVELOPMENT OF A LOW PRESSURE, AIR ATOMIZED OIL BURNER WITH HIGH ATOMIZER AIR FLOW

This report describes technical advances made to the concept of a low pressure, air atomized oil burner for home heating applications. Currently all oil burners on the market are of the pressure atomized, retention head type. These burners have a lower firing rate limit of about 0.5 gallons per hour of oil, due to reliability problems related to small flow passage sizes. High pressure air atomized burners have been shown to be one route to avoid this problem but air compressor cost and reliability have practically eliminated this approach. With the low pressure air atomized burner the air required for atomization can be provided by a fan at 5--8 inches of water pressure. A burner using this concept, termed the Fan-Atomized Burner or FAB has been developed and is currently being commercialized. In the head of the FAB, the combustion air is divided into three parts, much like a conventional retention head burner. This report describes development work on a new concept in which 100% of the air from the fan goes through the atomizer. The primary advantage of this approach is a great simplification of the head design. A nozzle specifically sized for this concept was built and is described in the report. Basic flow pressure tests, cold air velocity profiles, and atomization performance have been measured. A burner head/flame tube has been developed which promotes a torroidal recirculation zone near the nozzle for flame stability. The burner head has been tested in several furnace and boiler applications over the tiring rate range 0.2 to 0.28 gallons per hour. In all cases the burner can operate with very low excess air levels (under 10%) without producing smoke. Flue gas NO{sub x} concentration varied from 42 to 62 ppm at 3% 0{sub 2}. The concept is seen as having significant potential and planned development efforts are discussed