Multiple Burners on One Regulator - Psi Question

Knight Owl Forge

Knight Owl Forge

Bladesmith
Joined
Mar 14, 2017
Messages
75
Hey guys and gals,

I've had this question nagging me at the back of my head since I built my first propane forge... If there are say two burners running off of one regulator and the regulator says 6 Psi, is each burner running at 6 Psi for a total of 12 Psi or are they each running at 3 Psi for a total of 6 Psi?

I'm mainly curious so that I can determine if my fuel burn rate is within a reasonable range.

Thanks!
 
They are both running at 6PSI. That is the pressure delivered to them. It is not additive. What is additive is the BTU output. If each burner creates 60K BTU, then the forge is running at 120K BTU.
 
So a follow up question then... Would it be safe to assume that running two burners with the regulator saying 6 Psi would burn the same amount of fuel as one burner running at 12 Psi?
 
No.

Flow through a jet varies with the square root of the pressure across it.

2 burners at 6 psi will therefore use the same gas as one burner at 24 psi.
 
Hot damn! Thanks for explaining that. Just so I know for the future, what is the formula that you used to make these calculations? Is it as simple as adding the two burner Psi together and doubling it? Such as this (using the example numbers) 6+6=12 12x2=24 and if say we move to 3 burners would it be 6+6+6=18 18x3=54 ? Sorry I am so dense here.
 
It is not as simple as the math in post #5, and gas flow versus pressure is a tiny bit more complicated than just varying with the square root of the pressure across the orifice, but googling "(air or gas) flow through an orifice" will bring up some online calculators that can help you answer your questions.
 
The simplest way to consider it is if you made two burners and each had its own hose and regulator connected to the same propane tank. Each would be running at 6PSI and each would consume X amount of gas in one hour. The two burners would consume 2X amount of gas from the tank in one hour.

If there is only one regulator, the basic flow and amount consumed is still around the same 2X. There are a bunch of engineering things that enter this, but for simple explanation, the answer is twice the amount of gas as a single burner.
 
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