Flow rate distribution and effect of convection and radiation heat transfer on the temperature profile during a coil annealing process

Determining the temperature of several steel coils, heated in a furnace with a controlled hydrogen environment is important in an annealing process. Temperatures must be defined during heat treatment in order to guarantee metallurgical properties and acceptable reduced residual stresses. In this paper we approach hydrogen flow characteristics in the furnace and through a set of coils using an annealing non-differential model. Fluid flow is schematized as a pipe network solved by the Hardy Cross method to obtain pressure drops across the various gas flow segments. A comparison is made between measured and simulated results, confirming the adequacy of adopted assumptions and the validity of proposed model. Convective and radiative exchanges between the furnace and the coils are calculated by a discretization using the finite differences method. The convection coefficients are estimated and introduced into the boundary conditions around the coil to obtain the temperature distribution in the coils and in the covering bell. Finally, heat exchanges by convection and radiation are estimated by this model and the modeling errors are < 8 A degrees C.