In the case of any burner system, the total air is divided into primary air,

secondary, and tertiary air. Each of this air plays a very vital role in
combustion. The primary air gives the initial ignition oxygen, the secondary
air allows the higher hydrocarbon or char to burn, and the tertiary ensures
the delayed combustion process purposely introduced by designers to
reduce NOx level. While this distribution of total air will be normally 30%
primary, 55 to 60% secondary, and about 10 to 15% tertiary air. The burners
are designed to ensure the intended ratio by actual design of the resistance
introduced in each section for the required flow area. All these will be for a
set register pressure or wind box pressure depending upon wall firing or
tangential firing.