The Future of Fuel Technology. Proceedings of a Conference Held by the Institute of Fuel at the Invitation of, and in Collaboration with, the Royal Institution of Engineers in the Netherlands, Amsterdam, May 1963

228 Pages·1964·22.88 MB·English

THE FUTURE
of
FUEL TECHNOLOGY
Proceedings of a Conference held by the
Institute of Fuel at the Invitation of
and in Collaboration with,
The Royal Institution of Engineers
in the Netherlands, Amsterdam, May 1963
Edited by
G. N. CRITCHLEY
SYMPOSIUM PUBLICATIONS DIVISION
PERGAMON PRESS
OXFORD · LONDON · EDINBURGH · NEW YORK
PARTS · FRANKFURT
1964
PERGAMON PRESS LTD.
Headington Hill Hall, Oxford
4 and 5 Fitzroy Square, London W.l
PERGAMON PRESS (SCOTLAND) LTD.
2 and 3 Teviot Place, Edinburgh 1
PERGAMON PRESS INC.
122 East 55th Street, New York 22, N.Y.
GAUTHIER-VILLARS ED.
55 Quai des Grands-Augustins, Paris 6e
PERGAMON PRESS G.m.b.H.
Kaiserstrasse 75, Frankfurt am Main
Distributed in the Western Hemisphere by
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY· NEW YORK
pursuant to a special arrangement with
Pergamon Press Limited
Copyright © 1964
PERGAMON PRESS LTD.
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 64-21298
Printed in the Netherlands by A. W. Sythoif - Leyden
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Organizing Committee for the Institute of Fuel Conference
on the Future of Fuel Technology.
G. N. Critchley: Chairman
L. Clegg
H. E. Crossley
R. F. Hayman
E. H. Hubbard
W. Idris Jones
M. W. Thring
F. A. Williams
R. W. Reynolds-Davies: Secretary of the Institute
G. T. Carter: Secretary of the Committee
FOREWORD
RICHARD WOOD
Minister of Power
IT was with great pleasure that I accepted Professor Thring's invitation to
write a foreword to this publication of the Proceedings of the Conference on
"The Future of Fuel Technology" held in Amsterdam in the summer.
Efficiency and technical progress in the production and use of energy play
a large part in increasing prosperity and will continue to do so. The importance
of the subject matter of this Conference therefore needs little emphasis from
me. We have for a long time owed a debt to the fuel industries for the effort
they have made to develop their own products and technologies. Now there
emerges more and more clearly, in this field and in many others, the need
for the fullest collaboration and exchange of views between the scientists and
technologists of the different industries and of different countries.
I therefore particularly welcome the holding of this International Confer­
ence of Fuel Technologists. Its part in encouraging progress will be evident
to those who read this book. The Koninklijk Instituut van Ingenieurs and
the Institute of Fuel showed great initiative in organizing the Conference and
I offer them my warmest congratulations on its success.
9
INTRODUCTION
G. A. TUYL SCHUITEMAKER
LADIES and gentlemen, as Vice-President of the Council of the Royal
Institution of Engineers in the Netherlands, I have pleasure in welcoming
you, members of The Institute of Fuel, with your ladies and guests.
We consider it a great honour that, when you decided to hold your summer
meeting abroad for the first time since your Institute was founded, you
selected our country for this event. As a matter of fact the 15th Anniversary
of the International Flame Research Foundation offered an excellent motive
and in this connexion you will certainly permit me to mention the names of
the promoters of this Conference, Professor Thring and Mr. Van Stein
Callenfels.
At an early stage it was decided that the Royal Institution of Engineers
would be of assistance in the organization of the Conference. This Institution
comprises most of the Dutch engineers with a University qualification, totalling
about 12,000 members. It covers the entire field of engineering occupations
in the Netherlands and consists of 14 divisions, each representing a branch
of technical science. Some of these divisions have one or more sections
occupying themselves with more specialized subjects.
In the total field of Fuel Technology here in the Netherlands we do not
have a group like your Institute, which was founded specially for "the general
advancement of the various branches of Fuel Technology", promoting
research in, and the teaching of, Fuel Technology.
Several aspects of this field are, however, dealt with in the Divisions for
Chemical, Mechanical, Mining and Petroleum Engineering, and in the
Section for Heat Transfer. It is understandable that, especially during these
last decades, the interest in everything connected with energy has increased
enormously, and this last winter made it clear how much our "welfare"
community in all its structural elements depends on a sufficient supply of
energy! For centuries the supply of fuel for domestic purposes did not present
any problem. Wood and peat were available in sufficient quantities, and new
sources of supply were more than adequate to cover the increasing needs.
In the nineteenth century, when industrialization started, we began to draw
on the fossil fuels, regardless of the resources available, and of the magnitude
of which we had not the slightest idea.
The fantastic increase in energy requirements which is resulting from
increasing industrial growth is causing our resources of fossil fuels to be
exhausted at an ever increasing speed.
11
12 INTRODUCTION
In the Netherlands the total yearly energy consumption is equivalent to
about 33 million tons of coal. In the south of the country we have collieries
producing some 12 million tons of coal per year. In the north and west there
are some oilfields producing about 2 million tons of oil, corresponding to
3 million tons of coal equivalent, per year. In the north of the country con­
siderable sources of natural gas were recently discovered. A conservative
estimate of the reserves found indicates a quantity of some 300 to 400 milliard
m3. This means that for the time being the Netherlands seem to have at their
disposal Western Europe's most important source of natural gas, a fact
which is of the utmost importance to a country which does not possess many
natural riches. It is not difficult to prophesy that in our country the Fuel
Technology in respect to gas utilization will get much attention in the years
to come. Nevertheless, the quantity of natural gas available is limited and will
be exhausted in some 40 years. Concerning, as another example, the world
crude oil position, reserves already found amount to about 40 milliard
tons.
At the present rate of production this would mean that resources would be
consumed in, again, about 40 years. This picture is not a true one, firstly
because the estimated reserve is very conservative, but mainly because the
estimated reserve relates to fields now in production. Each deeper layer
found in an existing field and each newly discovered field will increase the
calculated reserve. Statistics show that the calculated reserves increase from
year to year. As a guess it may be said that there is enough crude oil and gas
in the world to meet energy requirements for 40 years, allowing for the yearly
increase in demand, and that after 100 years oil will still be being produced.
In these circumstances it is quite evident that mankind will have to look
for alternatives to orthodox fuels. I have in mind, in particular, nuclear
energy. Again, it is evident that we should make every endeavour to economize
in the use of our resources of fossil fuels.
Work done in the field of Fuel Technology will thus have to contribute to
a more rational and more efficient use of fuels in general, and of fossil fuels
in particular. Somewhere and some time you may feel that you are working
for the benefit of mankind.
The American writer Arnold B. Barash gives in his very interesting book
1975 and the changes to come glimpes of things that will be commonplace in
our lives when we are a decade or so older. There will be, at that time, con­
siderably more people who can be living under far easier conditions than
today. Conferences like the one now to be held create the mental and spiritual
conditions which enable us to reach in joint consultation a solution to the
many, many problems lying ahead.
Wishing you all, ladies and gentlemen, pleasant and fruitful days in our
beautiful country, I declare the Conference on "The Future of Fuel Tech­
nology" opened.
THE BROAD STRATEGY OF RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT IN INDUSTRIAL FUEL UTILIZATION
M. W. THRING*
1. THE TWO ASPECTS OF A FUEL POLICY
The first stage in formulating a national or world fuel policy is to survey
the available fuels, and to estimate the economic cost of delivering the unit
of heat at a given spot from these different fuels. In the past, there has been
a tendency among economists and politicians to say that the whole of a fuel
policy is then to consider the use of tariffs or economic incentives to encourage
one fuel in preference to another, usually for political reasons such as the
abundance of a particular fuel in a particular country. The user of the fuel is,
however, primarily concerned in obtaining his required result, whether it is
a metallurgical process, the generation of electricity or domestic heating
with the lowest overall cost, and, of course, a levy on a particular imported
fuel or a subsidy on a national fuel both have the ultimate effect of raising
his overall fuel costs, the latter because the subsidy must be provided out of
taxation, which in the long run is paid by industry. This is essentially why the
technological aspect of a fuel policy is at least as important as the economic
aspect. By the technological aspect of the fuel policy, I mean execution of
research and development of new ways of using a fuel to take account of the
need to provide the manufacturer with the cheapest overall fuel processing
result. Thus, the technological aspect of a fuel policy consists essentially of
making a detailed study of an existing industrial process and then trying to
find ways of doing it more cheaply overall from the fuel point of view. In
many cases this means, for example, that a fuel which can in fact be delivered
more cheaply at the spot would only be the cheapest overall fuel if its dis­
advantages of expensive handling or replacement of refractories or steelwork
could be overcome. The successful execution of a given item in this second
aspect of a fuel policy thus consists of three essential steps :
(1) A very careful definition of the problem, both in terms of the best
possible product, and in terms of the cheapest possible way of achieving
this product. Thermal efficiency is an essential part of this cheapest
possible way, but capital and maintenance costs, and running costs
other than fuel, all come into it also.
* Professor of Fuel Technology and Chemical Engineering, University of Sheffield.
15
16 M. W. THRING
(2) A decision as to whether the existing method of carrying out the process
could be modified to use a cheaper fuel, or an existing fuel with less fuel
consumption, or whether it is necessary to abandon the present process
and go to a better one.
(3) The stages of development of a better process.
2. THE PRINCIPLES OF DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW PROCESS
In a recent paper in the Journal of the Institute, I described the river of
ignorance and prejudice flowing between the left bank where the pure physical
chemist works on combustion reactions, and the right bank where the practical
engineer designs his boilers and furnaces. I indicated that there are three
main piers in the bridge across from the one bank to the other, which we
have been constructing, for example, with the International Flame Research
Foundation work, and with work in University Applied Science Departments
such as my own. The reason I refer to this diagram here (see Fig. 1) is that it
M.H.D.
GENERATOR.
QUITE NEW BOILER OR
DIFFERENT WORKING
LAMINAR FLAME. FLUID. e.g. H g.
SINGLE DROPLET. C.M.H. FLAME.
SINGLE PARTICLE HOMOGENEOUS COMBUSTOR. 'LAME TUNNEL^ - IMPROVED BURNER.
FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE 1 2 3
(PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY) EXISTING BOILER.
INDUSTRIAL PLANT.
FIG. 1. The river of ignorance and prejudice.
also illustrates another important principle if we regard the right bank of the
river as broken up by a number of channels at right angles to the river separat­
ing different types of equipment. The point then is that the further the engineer
is able to build the bridge across towards the pure scientist, the more it is
possible to come back on to a different place on the right bank and the more
radical the change which can be produced in the type of equipment which
he is designing. As long as he stays on the right bank the engineer can only
envisage, for example, a small change in the detail of a burner or an air
register or a brick wall in the furnace, but if he goes towards the type of flame
study used at IJmuiden, he can envisage a different flame. If he goes half way
across to the central pier of the river, he can invent an entirely new type of
INDUSTRIAL FUEL UTILIZATION 17
flame by controlling the recirculation or mixing flow pattern and the com­
bustion characteristics to obtain exactly what he wants. Going still further
across, to the pier nearest to the pure science bank, that of single particle and
laminar flame work, he hopes ultimately to be able to produce differential
equations which will enable him to design a new piece of equipment from first
principles. A diagram which is even more descriptive of the situation which
occurs when one tries to develop a new way of using fuels is that shown in
Fig. 2 where the practical systems are now at the top of the diagram, and the
fundamental differential equations of applied science are at the base. This
diagram illustrates that you can go from existing equipment to a small change
EXISTING [ k SMALL QUITE NEW
PROCESS. EMPIRICAL IMPROVEMENT. PROCESS.
CHANGE. (J )
\ ' /® \s / 1(D&
/ w
HOT MODEL LARGE
OR FLAME TUNNEL i PILOT PLANT.
' SIMPIIFYING __Λ / /
EMPIRICAL 1 F / CREATIVE ASSUMPTIONS. NUMERICAL i k<D
PHYSICAL DESIGN
SIMILARITY.
UNDERSTAND­ THEORY.
ING.
L·
' ACCURACY. v
COLD \ SMALL
i
MODEL. PILOT PLANT.
♦ 4®
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.
FIG. 2. The process of development. The anatomy of applied research.
by quite simple processes of small improvements represented by the path
No. 1. Even for a small change one can go in a more fundamental way by the
controlled mixing history flame and the aerodynamic models (path No. 2)
or by complete reference back to basic principles (path No. 3), but these more
fundamental ways also allow one to go to a quite new process. The development
of a quite new process must always be based on the small and large pilot plant
stages as well as a satisfactory physical understanding, but it also has 3
approaches, path [No. 1 is the purely empirical, 2 and 3 require more theory.
The four stages of development can be illustrated by the development of
18 M. W. THRING
ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE.
INDUSTRIAL
4. NUCLEAR POWER STATION.
PLANT;
SUPERFICIAL. "NATURAL
EMPIRICAL. HISTORY" LARGE PILOT 1
PLANT. 3. PILE REQUIRING COOLING.
E C O N O M I C S.
z*
o SMALL PILOT
2. SMALLEST CRITICAL PILE.
PLANT.
FUNDAMENTAL. EXPERIMENTUM M
THEORETICAL. CRUCIS z \ BENCH SCALE EVALUATION |
> OF COEFFICIENTS MEASUREMENT OF NUCLEAR
z NEUTRON CROSS SECTIONS.
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS.
PURE. ' APPLIED.
FIG. 3. Pure and applied research.
electricity from nuclear fission by means of the diagram of Fig. 3. The first
stage is completely indistinguishable from fundamental pure research, both
being laboratory experiments on single parts of the process, the only difference
is one of aim; they are separated by the line of invention. In the case of
nuclear fission this was the invention of the possibility of a chain reaction,
and the character of the work did not change, but it became necessary to
measure nuclear fission cross-sections. The second stage of development, the
small pilot plant, costs about ten times as much as the first stage, and is the
one in which the key parts of the process are put together to demonstrate
that the process could work. We then cross the double horizontal line on the
right-hand side of Fig. 3, which is the introduction of economics into the
development, so that stage 3, the large pilot plant does not itself have to be
economic, but it does have to give the figures on which the economy of the
resulting process can be calculated. This stage itself is, in general, not econom­
ic, both because it is not yet as large as the final plant, and because it has to
be built much more expensively to allow for alterations and factors of safety.
In the case of nuclear fission this stage was the first reactors producing a few
kilowatts of power while the smaller pilot plant would be the original piles
which first went critical. Stage 4, of course, is the commercial unit, which is
the first stage where some of the expenditure is recovered, that is, the first
stage that actually produces a return for the development work.
There is one other very important point about these four stages, apart from
the different questions which they have to answer and the steadily rising
costs of the successive stages, and this is the question of the probability of
success. When the original invention is made, the probability of success is
usually of the order of one in a hundred, never better than one in ten. The
work will not go to the small pilot plant stage unless it improves to a probabil-