Results of Investigations on the Current State of Japanese Industrial Furnaces - High Temperature Air Combustion: From Energy Conservation to Pollution Reduction - page 360

Appendix A
Results of Investigations on
the Current State of Japanese
Industrial Furnaces

A.1 INTRODUCTION

To clarify the effect on energy saving and prevention of global warming by popu-
larizing the achievements of the Development of High Performance Industrial Fur-
nace Project, it became necessary to investigate the status of a number of industrial
furnaces in Japan with regard to their energy consumption and heat efficiency.
Consequently, the Energy Conservation Center conducted a questionnaire, inter-
views, and a statistical analysis of the investigations by request of the Japan Industrial
Furnace Manufacturers Association. The state of industrial furnaces and the effect

of the popularization of the results of development are reviewed in the following
sections.

1

A.2 ITEMS AND METHODS OF INVESTIGATION

The elements of the investigation comprise (1) a questionnaire, (2) an interview, (3)
statistical analysis, and (4) an investigation of present conditions. In the statistical
analysis, the number of industrial furnaces in Japan, energy consumption, and heat
efficiency were assumed based on the results of the investigation. In the investigation
of the present conditions, we extracted data from all the available related materials
from the authorities concerned with the related industrial organizations, etc.
The elements of the investigation are shown in Table A.1 , and the scope of the
investigation is shown in Table A.2 . The methods of investigation consist of ques-
tionnaire and interview inquiries with users and suppliers, as shown in Table A.3 .
As shown in Table A.2, the scale of facilities of the investigation objects is confined
to combustion furnaces over 582 kW (500 Mcal/h) and electrical furnaces over 50
kVA. The food, textile, and paper pulp industries were excluded from the investi-
gation, because almost all of them use heat sources of relatively small capacity, such
as steam heating.
Interviews were conducted to improve the accuracy of the data, especially
regarding heating furnaces, heat treatment furnaces, and aluminum-melting furnaces.
That these were the objects of the development of high performance furnaces could