Re: Oil Burner Advice Needed

I am not familiar with the design you are talking about. Is this experimental or are you following a proven design? Drawing are available in quite a few books that have been reproduced showing the "Boden Ingles" style burner used in most steam locomotives. Oil burners in marine service that I have seen (1) and also in many books have the oil pressurized and heated to assist atomizing plus have air under pressure going over the outlet orfice and through a turbulator to spin the air to help mix with the oil. Some stationary boilers I have been around that were set up for heavy oil used a rotary cup burner. The gist being that the oil exits inside a spinning cone to assist atomizing plus the oil is preheated (bunker C), air can be from natural draft or forced. All of these designs have one thing in common which is the oil fire burns with refractory brick surrounding the fire on all but the top. The rotary cup type has a refractory cone and then into a refractory lined firebox. The refractory will soon be hot enough to glow red after fire up reflecting intense head back into to the burning fuel. So far as I know this is absolutely essential for burning any oil heavier than diesel. If you are ever around a cold fire up on an oil burning locomotive, it can be a fairly drippy, unstable fire until the refractory brick is hot.