Hydrogen Test Furnace

Client

University of Sheffield, Translational Energy Research Centre

Scope of Service

A new test furnace was required to allow for the firing of mixed Hydrogen and Natural gas fuels.

A fuel skid capable of supplying 300 kW of mixed natural gas and hydrogen mixes of 0- 100% was supplied, with Siemens Coriolis mass flow meters supplied in the hydrogen and natural gas lines and used to control the desired natural gas and hydrogen flow rates.

Fuel skids contained all necessary equipment to meet the requirements of EN 746-2 and had two separate metered lines to allow feeding a main gas line and a smaller impulse gas line. A gas booster was supplied to increase the site pressure from 21 mbar to approximately 100 mbar.

A high-pressure hydrogen regulator and over pressure protection equipment was supplied to regulate the site hydrogen pressure down from 5 bar to an operating pressure of approximately 100 mbar.

The Air/fuel mixing design allows for the KINEMAX 3-G burner to be operated on ratio throughout the firing range. A special version of the burner suitable for operation of a mixture of natural gas and hydrogen was supplied.

The burner is equipped with UV flame scanner and burner control unit, to perform ignition and flame monitoring. This is suitable to allow for the unmanned operation of the unit when operating.

A baffle gas mixer was supplied to adequately mix the natural gas and hydrogen prior to the burner. A separate nitrogen line was supplied to allow for the baffle mixer to be purged prior to and after use.

The furnace was installed with water cooling pins across the furnace which able to extract up to 200kW of energy from the furnace.  Pressure relief valves were installed on the return lines to prevent any pressure build up as a result from steam.

A control panel was supplied to carry out all process control, data recording and safety functions, based on a Siemens Safety S7-1500 PLC.  The control system was designed to allow for automatic, unattended, fail-safe operation, with automatic start-up, shutdown and emergency sequences to ensure the furnace operates in a safe manner at all times.