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Goodyear tire-fired boiler
Resource Recovery and Conservation, 1 (1976) 315 o Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands
315
Short communication GOODYEAR
TIRE-FIRED
BOILER*
E.R. MOATS The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio 44316
(U.S.A.)
(Received 19th March 1975)
Recognizing the potential energy source of the 165-million tires discarded annually in the United States, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is testing a method of heat generating from whole tire combustion in a tirefired boiler at its Jackson, Michigan, tire plant. This furnace, originally designed by Lucas American Recyclers, was chosen after an investigation of tire-fired boiler equipment suppliers by Goodyear’s Corporate Engineering Department in 1971. The basic furnace design was developed by Lucas Furnace Development, Ltd., of England with the engineering design and construction being rendered by Lucas American Recyclers and Fluor Utah. The design included a furnace with the design capability of burning 32.7 metric tons (36 tons) of scrap tires per day and a boiler to generate 11,338 kg (25,000 pounds) of steam at 1.7 X lo6 Pa (250 psi) per hour. Stack gas cleaning equipment was incorporated as a contingency to reduce particulate and SOZ emissions (though tires contain less than one percent sulfur) to comply with possible air pollution standards. The furnace operates continually without supplementary fuel at a temperature high enough (1093°C at the center) to melt all the non-combustible material such as bead wire and fiber glass. It utilizes a rotary hearth which is sloped to a central ash discharge port. This hearth is refractory lined and water cooled around the center to protect its metallic body from the high temperatures developed inside the furnace. Gases rise in a vortex that causes smoke and odor molecules to be consumed. An inert ash is all that remains after the whole tires complete the burning cycle. Tires are fed onto the hearth from a vestibule by means of a pusher ram. Tires enter the vestibule through a door which closes as the furnace door opens to receive the tires. The hearth can revolve at rates of from l/4 to 8-l/2 revolutions,per hour with its rate set manually so that the tires are completely consumed in two revolutions. (In normal burning, hearth rates are in the range of 2.7 to 6.0 revolutions per hour.) The tire-fired boiler thus meets the needs of the American society today; it generates cheap steam at no drain on fossil fuel sources while contributing a viable solution to the disposition of a troublesome solid waste component. *Paper presented at the Symposium “Energy Recovery from Solid Waste”, March 13-14, 1975.
315
Short communication GOODYEAR
TIRE-FIRED
BOILER*
E.R. MOATS The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., Akron, Ohio 44316
(U.S.A.)
(Received 19th March 1975)
Recognizing the potential energy source of the 165-million tires discarded annually in the United States, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company is testing a method of heat generating from whole tire combustion in a tirefired boiler at its Jackson, Michigan, tire plant. This furnace, originally designed by Lucas American Recyclers, was chosen after an investigation of tire-fired boiler equipment suppliers by Goodyear’s Corporate Engineering Department in 1971. The basic furnace design was developed by Lucas Furnace Development, Ltd., of England with the engineering design and construction being rendered by Lucas American Recyclers and Fluor Utah. The design included a furnace with the design capability of burning 32.7 metric tons (36 tons) of scrap tires per day and a boiler to generate 11,338 kg (25,000 pounds) of steam at 1.7 X lo6 Pa (250 psi) per hour. Stack gas cleaning equipment was incorporated as a contingency to reduce particulate and SOZ emissions (though tires contain less than one percent sulfur) to comply with possible air pollution standards. The furnace operates continually without supplementary fuel at a temperature high enough (1093°C at the center) to melt all the non-combustible material such as bead wire and fiber glass. It utilizes a rotary hearth which is sloped to a central ash discharge port. This hearth is refractory lined and water cooled around the center to protect its metallic body from the high temperatures developed inside the furnace. Gases rise in a vortex that causes smoke and odor molecules to be consumed. An inert ash is all that remains after the whole tires complete the burning cycle. Tires are fed onto the hearth from a vestibule by means of a pusher ram. Tires enter the vestibule through a door which closes as the furnace door opens to receive the tires. The hearth can revolve at rates of from l/4 to 8-l/2 revolutions,per hour with its rate set manually so that the tires are completely consumed in two revolutions. (In normal burning, hearth rates are in the range of 2.7 to 6.0 revolutions per hour.) The tire-fired boiler thus meets the needs of the American society today; it generates cheap steam at no drain on fossil fuel sources while contributing a viable solution to the disposition of a troublesome solid waste component. *Paper presented at the Symposium “Energy Recovery from Solid Waste”, March 13-14, 1975.