After a certain service life, the regenerative burner needs to be replaced. If the regenerative burner is not replaced in time, the following consequences may occur. It needs to be comprehensively evaluated according to the specific industrial scene and equipment status:

1. Decreased energy efficiency and increased operating costs

-Heat storage performance attenuation: after long-term use, the ceramic heat storage body may be blocked, cracked or accumulated ash, resulting in reduced heat recovery efficiency (usually the thermal efficiency of new burner can reach more than 80%, but may drop to less than 60% after aging), and significantly increased fuel consumption.

-Unstable combustion: coking or deformation inside the burner will destroy the air-fuel ratio, fluctuate the flame temperature, increase the risk of incomplete combustion, and further waste energy.

2. Increased risk of equipment damage

-Shortened service life of high temperature components: If the burner nozzle or heat storage box is exposed to high temperature for a long time and is not replaced in time, cracks, ablation and even furnace wall melting may occur due to material fatigue.

-Associated damage to other equipment: for example, incomplete combustion may lead to excessive CO content in the flue gas, corrosion of downstream heat exchangers or pipes; flame shift may damage the furnace lining.

3. Environmental discharge exceeds the standard

-Safety hazards: gas leakage risk (seal aging), backfire or deflagration (uneven gas flow distribution).

-Particulate matter and CO emissions: Carbon deposits or blockage may cause black smoke from the chimney, resulting in environmental penalties or shutdown for rectification.

4. Production safety and quality control issues

-Safety hazards: gas leakage risk (seal aging), backfire or deflagration (uneven gas flow distribution).

-Product defects: such as uneven temperature in the glass kiln will lead to different thickness of glass; steel heating furnace may cause thickening of oxide scale on steel billet.

5. Hidden growth in maintenance costs

-Frequent breakdowns: Planned shutdowns for nozzle replacement usually take only a few hours, but sudden failures can cause production line shutdowns of 1-2 days with greater losses.

-Manual maintenance cost: the labor cost of disassembling and cleaning old burners may exceed 30% of the purchase cost of new burners.

Recommendations

-Periodic detection: monitor the surface temperature distribution of the burner through infrared thermal imager, or analyze the composition of flue gas regularly.

-Preventive replacement cycle: The service life of the burner in general industrial furnace is 3-5 years (depending on the fuel cleanliness and working conditions), which should be shortened to 2-3 years in high sulfur fuel environment.

-Upgrade alternatives: Consider a new generation of high frequency commutated heat storage burner or oxygen enrichment combustion technology to further reduce energy consumption.