variavel0=<b>Vicente de Paulo Nicolau</b> - vicente@lmpt.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Rafael Fernando Hartke</b> - Edson@emc.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Willian Anderson Lehmkuhl</b> - willian@cet.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Wagner Mitio Kawaguti</b> - wagner@cet.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Tales Gottlieb Jahn</b> - tales@cet.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Alessandro Pedro Dadam</b> - alessandro@cet.ufsc.br LABCET -  EMC - UFSC
<b>Gabriel Mann dos Santos</b> - gabriel@tractebelenergia.com.br Tractebel
<b>Abstract.</b> A tunnel kiln is used to firing bricks, specially bricks of 4 and 6 holes. The kiln is long of 80 m, with 6 lateral furnaces and some improvements have been implemented as additional wall insulations and a lengthening of 10m in the cooling zone. Wood was used as fuel in the beginning and the kiln has been adapted to burn natural gas. The burning zone temperature is about 800 ºC. Software based on finite-difference technique has been developed and used to simulate the whole kiln behavior, including preheating, burning and cooling zones. A series of data as temperatures, flow rates and gas concentration have been collected and analyzed. Experimental and numerical results are presented and compared, including temperature distribution inside the kiln and fuel consumption rate.
<b>Keywords.</b> tunnel kiln, natural gas, brick production, ceramic, thermal simulation.