Background. The main technological equipment to produce bread and confectionary is baking ovens. Fuel-based rotary ovens, in which the heat source is a heat generator, have become widespread. Often, the thermal conditions of ovens are characterized by increased fuel and thermal energy costs which depend on the efficiency of the heat generator. Currently, there are no recommendations on the design of a heat generator with the most efficient characteristics and the coefficient of efficiency, namely the distribution of the heat transfer surface between the flame tube and the heat exchanger, the layout and materials of the heat exchanger tubes, the geometry of heat exchange intensifiers, etc. Therefore, there is a need to study the thermal operation of the rotary oven of the heat generator to increase its efficiency due to improving the design.
Materials and methods. Physical and numerical experiments using mathematical modeling methods are caried out to study thermal operation of the heat generator of a rotary baking oven.
Results. The authors have conducted computational and experimental studies of thermal operation of the heat generator. The results have showed a large unevenness of the temperature field of the heat generator, underheating of the baking chamber to the minimum required temperature of 220 ° C, which indicates the low efficiency of the device.
Conclusions. The results of field and numerical studies have confirmed the low thermal efficiency of the heat generator. Thus, the development of new technical solutions aimed at improving the design of this device is highly topical.