Measurement of Combustion Efficiency of Ground Flare Burners

摘要

Marathon Petroleum Company (MPC) and Clean Air Engineering (CleanAir) conducted performance testing on the Garyville ground flare burners at the John Zink test facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma from August 3~(nd) to August 11th, 2012. The performance testing was conducted with Passive FTIR technology. Two test series were conducted on SKEC (steam-assisted) burners and two test series were conducted on LRGO (pressure-assisted) burners. The purposes of the test were to determine the NHVcz required to maintain high combustion efficiency and to demonstrate that both types of burners can achieve compliance with necessary combustion efficiency requirements at velocities greater than 400 ft/s. The test results show that when Tulsa natural gas (TNG) is used as fuel, the SKEC burners maintain high combustion efficiency until NHVcz falls below 300 BTU/scf. This is consistent with past PFTIR studies on steam-assisted flare tips. When TNG is used as fuel, the LRGO burners maintain high combustion efficiency until the NHVcz falls to a point where the flame is extinguished. Under all conditions tested, these burners maintained an average CE equal to or greater than 99%. Under all conditions tested, the flame extinguishes at an NHVcz of approximately 550 BTU/scf. This test program demonstrated that as long as the LRGO burners are lit, they maintain high combustion efficiency. Both the LRGO and SKEC burners maintain high combustion efficiency at exit velocities much higher than those allowed by 40 CFR 60.18 and 63.11. The flares operated efficiently at velocities up to sonic which would represent the maximum velocity achievable.