Numerical investigation of full scale coal combustion model of tangentially fired boiler with the effect of mill ducting

In this paper a full scale combustion model incorporating upstream mill ducting of a large tangentially fired boiler with flue gas recirculation was examined numerically. Lagrangian particle tracking was used to determine the coal particle paths and the Eddy Dissipation Model for the analysis of the gas phase combustion. Moreover volatiles and gaseous char products, given off by the coal particles were modelled by Arrhenius single phase reactions and a transport equation was solved for each material given off by the particles. Thermal, prompt, fuel and reburn NO _x models with presumed probability density functions were used to model NO _x production and the discrete transfer radiation model was used to model radiation heat transfer. Generally, the findings indicated reasonable agreement with observed qualitative and quantitative data of incident heat flux on the walls. The model developed here could be used for a range of applications in furnace design and optimisation of gas emissions of coal fired boiler plants.     

切圆燃烧锅炉内煤粉燃烧过程的数值模拟──等密度模型和等直径模型

用等密度模型和等直径模型模拟了切圆燃烧锅炉内的燃烧过程。用计算粒子来描述煤粉粒子群的运动和燃烧。假定粒子群围绕计算粒子呈正态分布来求得炉内燃烧热的分布。     

CPFD modeling of hydrodynamics,combustion and NOx emissions in an industrial CFB boiler

The ultra-low NOx emission requirement (50 mg/m³) brings great challenge to CFB boilers in China. To further tap the NOx abatement potential, full understanding the fundamentals behind CFB boilers is needed. To achieve this, a comprehensive CPFD model is established and verified; gas-solid flow, combustion, and NOx emission behavior in an industrial CFB boiler are elaborated; influences of primary air volume and coal particle size on furnace performance are evaluated. Simulation results indicate that there exists a typical core-annular flow structure in the boiler furnace. Furnace temperature is highest in the bottom dense-phase zone (about 950 °C) and decreases gradually along the furnace height. Oxygen-deficient combustion results in high CO concentration and strong reducing atmosphere in the lower furnace. NOx concentration gradually increases in the bottom furnace, reaches maximum at the elevation of secondary air inlet, and then decreases slightly in the upper furnace. Appropriate decreasing the primary air volume and coal particle size would increase the CO concentration and intensify the in-furnace reducing atmosphere, which favors for NOx reduction and low NOx emission from CFB boilers.     

Numerical investigation to assess the possibility of utilizing a new type of mechanically thermally dewatered (MTE) coal in existing tangentially-fired furnaces

The mechanical and thermal expression (MTE) process can be used to remove the moisture from high moisture coal such as lignite by applying the thermal energy and mechanical force. The moisture content of lignite at Yallourn, VIC, Australia is around 60–70%. Two-third of the water from the lignite can be removed at 150°C and 5.1 MPa by this process. In the conventional drying process, moisture is driven off by evaporation when the lignite passes through the mill. This process is inefficient from a thermodynamic point of view, because the latent heat of evaporation has to be supplied from the hot flue gas. This paper presents computational fluid dynamics (CFD) investigation of fluid flow and combustion of conventional lignite and MTE lignite in a tangentially fired full-scale industrial furnace. The idea is to investigate the aerodynamics and combustion effect of using MTE lignite in existing furnaces. The furnace investigated was Yallourn stage-2 in Victoria, Australia. CFD software CFX-4 (User Guide, CFX-4–Solver. AEA Technology. Harwell Laboratory, Oxfordshire, 1997) was used in this investigation. The MTE process is under development and has not been used in the real power station for the commercial production of electricity, hence no experimental data is available for comparison with the numerical predictions. To gain confidence in the MTE lignite simulations, the temperature contours and oxygen concentration at different furnace level of the conventional lignite combustion were validated first against the available experimental data. Then the predicted results of MTE lignite combustion were compared with conventional lignite combustion to assess the possibility of burning MTE lignite in existing tangentially fired furnaces.     

Flow field and thermal characteristics in a model of a tangentially fired furnace under different conditions of burner tripping

Tangentially fired furnaces are vortex-combustion units and are widely used in steam generators of industrial plants. The present study provides a numerical investigation of the problem of turbulent reacting flows in a model furnace of a tangentially fired boiler. The importance of this problem is mainly due to its relation to large boiler furnaces used in thermal power plants. In the present work, calculation of the flow field, temperature and species concentration-contour maps in a tangentially-fired model furnace are provided. The safety of these furnaces requires that the burner be tripped (its fuel is cut off) if the flame is extinguished. Therefore, the present work provides an investigation of the influence of number of tripped burners on the characteristics of the flow and thermal fields. The details of the flow, thermal and combustion fields are obtained from the solution of the conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy and transport equations for scalar variables in addition to the equations of the turbulence model. Available experimental measurements were used for validating the calculation procedure. The results show that the vortex created due to pressure gradient at the furnace center only influenced by tripping at least two burners. However, the temperature distributions are significantly distorted by tripping any of the burners. Regions of very high temperature close to the furnace walls appear as a result of tripping the fuel in one or two of the burners. Calculated heat flux along the furnace walls are presented.     

Investigation on lateral dispersion characteristics of fuel particles in dense phase zone of a large-scale circulating fluidized bed boiler under combustion conditions

The dispersion characteristics of fuel particles in the dense phase zone in circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boilers have an important influence on bed temperature distribution and pollutant emissions. However, previous research in literature was mostly on small-scale apparatus, whose results could not be applied directly to large-scale CFB with multiple dispersion sources. To help solve this problem, we proposed a novel method to estimate the lateral dispersion coefficient (D_x) of fuel particles under partial coal cut-off condition in a 350 MW supercritical CFB boiler based on combustion and dispersion models. Meanwhile, we carried out experiments to obtain the D_x in the range of 0.1218–0.1406 m²/s. Numerical simulations were performed and the influence of operating conditions and furnace structure on fuel dispersion characteristics was investigated, the simulation value of D_x was validated against experimental data. Results revealed that the distribution of bed temperature caused by the fuel dispersion was mainly formed by char combustion. Because of the presence of intermediate water-cooled partition wall, the mixing and dispersion of fuel and bed material particles between the left and right sides of the furnace were hindered, increasing the non-uniformity of the bed temperature near furnace front wall.     

辊底式热处理炉烧嘴控制仿真研究

应用Fluent软件建立了辊底式热处理的三维仿真模型。通过该模型得到了热处理炉的气体分布及变化情况,从而确定了烧嘴燃烧时序控制方案。采用差分进化算法对烧嘴的燃烧时间进行寻优,从而提高烧嘴燃烧控制精度。通过现场实测温度与模拟温度的仿真实验证实了本文提出的烧嘴燃烧控制模型的有效性,能够满足实际生产的需求。     

Prediction of a Turbulent Non-Premixed Natural Gas Flame in a Semi-Industrial Scale Furnace using a Radiative Flamelet Combustion Model

A mixedness-reactedness flamelet combustion model coupled with a comprehensive radiation heat transfer model based on the discrete transfer method of solution of the radiative transport equation is applied for the simulation of a 3 MW non-swirling turbulent non-premixed natural gas flame in the experimental furnace at the International Flame Research Foundation. In the calculation, turbulence is represented by the standard k − ε and a differential Reynolds-stress model. Predictions are compared with measurements of mean gas velocity, temperature, major species concentrations and incident radiation wall flux. The radiative mixedness-reactedness flamelet combustion model, irrespective of the model for turbulence, is able to reproduce the basic structure of the experimental flame, which is stabilised downstream of the burner nozzle. In the near burner region, encompassing the non-reacting lift-off zone, good quality predictions are obtained using both the turbulence models, whereas further downstream, within the combusting zone of the jet, the Reynolds-stress turbulence model generates better predictions at and about the furnace axis. The nitric oxide (NO) formation via the thermal- and prompt-NO routes was also calculated and compared with in-flame and flue-gas NO data. The measured NO level at the furnace exit is well reproduced in the calculation, however discrepancies exist near the burner where NO concentrations around the furnace axis are overpredicted.     

Effect of secondary air on NO emission in a 440 t/h circulating fluidized bed boiler based on CPFD method

The 440 t/h circulating fluidized bed boiler was numerically simulated by the Computational Particle Fluid Dynamics (CPFD) method. The combustion characteristics of circulating fluidized bed boiler and the effect of secondary air on NO emission were investigated. The full-scale three-dimensional model of a 440 t/h circulating fluidized bed boiler was established. The rationality of the grid was validated by the experimental data of material layer resistance. The accuracy of the simulation was validated by measuring the temperature of each measuring point in the dense phase area. The combustion conditions in the furnace under different setting modes were simulated. The effects of secondary air rates on NO formation in fluidized bed were predicted. The results show that when the secondary air rate increases to 27%, the proper secondary air rate has a positive effect on the inhibition of NO generation, and the proper strengthening of the central air supply will improve the permeability of the secondary air and make the combustion more uniform and stable. When the secondary air rate increases to 33%, excessive improvement of air classification and central air distribution will affect the stability of circulating fluidized bed operation. Therefore, air classification and strengthening of central air supply can be used together to inhibit the generation of NO.     

Crown incident radiant heat flux measurements in an industrial,regenerative, gas-fired,flat-glass furnace

Crown incident radiant heat flux measurements performed during both firing and non-firing cycles are reported, for the first time, in the combustion space of a regenerative, side-port, 455 metric ton/day, gas-fired, flat-glass furnace. Measurements were acquired through six crown access holes along the furnace axial centerline. Video and visual observations of the glass surface were also made through access ports in the furnace. A three-dimensional numerical model of the turbulent mixing, reaction, and heat transfer processes is also used to predict radiant heat flux to the crown. The measured crown incident radiant heat flux profile during firing cycles rises from 425 kW/m² close to the batch feeder to a peak of 710 kW/m² near the center of the combustion space, followed by a drop to approximately 575 kW/m² near the furnace working end. Numerical model results are in relatively good agreement with measured results. During non-firing reversal cycles, measured flux levels at the crown rise from 320 kW/m² near the batch feeder, to a maximum of 565 kW/m² closest to the spring zone. Increases in crown incident radiant heat flux due to combustion are quantified, with nominal increases of 105 kW/m² in regions closest to the batch feeder and approximately 155 kW/m² in the center of the combustion space. Lower increases from combustion (85 and 12 kW/m²) are exhibited in locations closest to the furnace working end. During the 20–25 s non-firing reversal period, the incident heat flux to the crown typically decreased between 20 and 50 kW/m² at each measured location. Variation of heat flux to the crown during 15-min firing cycles is typically 3–6% of the total incident heat flux, with a maximum typically occurring one-third of the way into the cycle (5–6 min) and declining during the remaining two-thirds of the period.     

Estimation of radiative properties and temperature distributions in coal-fired boiler furnaces by a portable image processing system

This paper presented an experimental investigation on the estimation of radiative properties and temperature distributions in a 670 t/h coal-fired boiler furnace by a portable imaging processing system. The portable system has been calibrated by a blackbody furnace. Flame temperatures and emissivities were measured by the portable system and equivalent blackbody temperatures were deduced. Comparing the equivalent blackbody temperatures measured by the portable system and the infrared pyrometer, the relative difference is less than 4%. The reconstructed pseudo-instantaneous 2-D temperature distributions in two cross-sections can disclose the combustion status inside the furnace. The measured radiative properties of particles in the furnace proved there is significant scattering in coal-fired boiler furnaces and it can provide useful information for the calculation of radiative heat transfer and numerical simulation of combustion in coal-fired boiler furnaces. The preliminary experimental results show this technology will be helpful for the combustion diagnosis in coal-fired boiler furnaces.     

Ultra-low-emission steam boiler constituted of reciprocal flow porous burner

This experimental study examined a low-emission steam boiler in which the filtration combustion technology was employed. This new boiler concept is consisted of a reciprocal flow porous burner, in which a combustion wave propagates along the reactor length. The boiler’s burner is filled up by an inert porous material, which leads to a stable burning of ultra-lean fuel/air mixtures, operating below flammability limits of conventional burners. In reciprocal filtration combustion, the reaction zone travels back and forth along the length of the burner, maintaining a typical trapezoidal temperature distribution favorable to the energy extraction. Embedding heat exchangers into the ends of the porous bed results in an alternative low-emission high-efficiency boiler. The heat re-circulation inside the porous matrix and the low degree of thermal non-equilibrium between the gas and the solid phases result in ultra-low levels of CO and NO_x. Over an equivalence ratio range from 0.20 to 1.0 and a gas flow velocity range from 0.2 to 0.6 m/s, burning the technical methane, the developed prototype has reached efficiencies superior to 90% and NO_x and CO emission levels lower than 1.0 and 0.5 ppm, respectively.     

Spectroscopic research on infrared emittance of coal ash deposits

This paper deals with thermal radiation characteristics of ash deposits on a pulverized coal combustion boiler of an electric power plant. Normal emittance spectra in the near to medium infrared (2.5–25 μm) region and total normal emittances were measured on four kinds of ground ash deposits. Measurements were conducted in the 570–1460 K temperature range which is common for boiler furnaces, by both heating and cooling the ash samples, with the aim to study the effect of their thermal history. Dependence of emittance on wavelength, temperature and chemical composition was studied, too. Samples were tested for transparency (opacity) to verify the accuracy of results. It was determined that the thicknesses used for the ash powders are opaque for infrared radiation for thicknesses in the order of a millimeter. Tests have shown that spectral emittance increases with an increase of wavelength with a characteristic pattern common for all samples. Spectral normal emittance increases strongly with temperature at shorter wavelengths and remains high and unchanged at longer ones. Emittance spectra are not very sensitive to chemical composition of ashes especially beyond λ ≈ 5 μm. With an increase of temperature, total emittance of the powdered sample decreases to a minimum value around 1200 K. Further temperature rise induces an increase of total emittance due to sintering in the ash. On cooling, the emittance increases monotonically following the hysteresis. Quantitative directions for evaluating thermal radiation characteristics of ash deposits for the merits of the safety design of boiler furnaces were proposed. That comprises correlating the experimentally obtained emittance spectra with curves of simple analytical form, i.e., a continuous function of minimum emittance vs. wavelength. The proposed method can be extended to other specimens from the same furnace and used to determine correlations for thermal calculation of old and design of new furnaces – with similar geometry and combusting similar coal. The method is potentially applicable to completely different boiler furnaces combusting different coal, and the authors recommend running the tests with new deposit samples. The data will then be applicable to the thermal design of a whole new class of furnaces, having similar geometry and combusting similar coal. This is expected to greatly enhance the accuracy and precision of thermal calculation as well as the efficiency of thermal design of steam boilers.     

Numerical investigation of pyrolysis of a Loy Yang coal in a lab-scale furnace at elevated pressures

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the pyrolysis of a Loy Yang low-rank coal in a pressurised drop tube furnace (pdtf) was undertaken evaluating Arrhenius reaction rate constants. The paper also presents predictions of an isothermal flow through the drop tube furnace. In this study, a pdtf reactor operated at pressures up to 15 bar and at a temperature of 1,173 K with particle heating rates of approximately 10⁵ K s^?1 was used. The CFD model consists of two geometrical sections; flow straightner and injector. The single reaction and two competing reaction models were employed for this numerical investigation of the pyrolysis process. The results are validated against the available experimental data in terms of velocity profiles for the drop tube furnace and the particle mass loss versus particle residence times. The isothermal flow results showed reasonable agreement with the available experimental data at different locations from the injector tip. The predicted results of both the single reaction and competing reaction modes showed slightly different results. In addition, several reaction rate constants were tested and validated against the available experimental data. The most accurate results were being Badzioch and Hawksley (Ind Eng Chem Process Des Dev 9:521–530, 1970) with a single reaction model and Ubhayakar et al. (Symp (Int) Combust 16:427–436, 1977) for two competing reactions. These numerical results can provide useful information towards future modelling of the behaviour of Loy Yang coal in a full scale tangentially-fired furnace.     

Modeling of particle transport and combustion phenomena in a large-scale circulating fluidized bed boiler using a hybrid Euler-Lagrange approach

The constantly developing fiuidized combustion technology has become competitive with a conventional pulverized coal （PC） combustion. Circulating fluidized bed （CFB） boilers can be a good alternative to PC boilers due to their robustness and lower sensitivity to the fuel quality. However, appropriate engineering tools that can be used to model and optimize the construction and operating parameters of a CFB boiler still require development. This paper presents the application of a relatively novel hybrid Euler-Lagrange approach to model the dense gas-solid flow combined with a combustion process in a large-scale indus- trial CFB boiler. In this work, this complex flow has been resolved by applying the ANSYS FLUENT 14.0 commercial computational fluid dynamics （CFD） code. To accurately resolve the multiphase flow, the original CFD code has been extended by additional user-defined functions. These functions were used to control the boiler mass load, particle recirculation process （simplified boiler geometry）, and interphase hydrodynamic properties. This work was split into two parts. In the first part, which is referred to as pseudo combustion, the combustion process was not directly simulated. Instead, the effect of the chemi- cal reactions was simulated by modifying the density of the continuous phase so that it corresponded to the mean temperature and composition of the flue gases, In this stage, the particle transport was simu- lated using the standard Euler-Euler and novel hybrid Euler-Lagrange approaches, The obtained results were compared against measured data, and both models were compared to each other. In the second part, the numerical model was enhanced by including the chemistry and physics of combustion. To the best of the authors＇ knowledge, the use of the hybrid Euler-Lagrange approach to model combustion is a new engineering application of this model, In this work, the combustion process was modeled for air-fuel combustion. The simulation results were compared with experimental data.     

The effects of chemical kinetics and wall temperature on performance of porous media burners

This paper reports a two-dimensional numerical prediction of premixed methane-air combustion in inert porous media burner by using of four multi-step mechanisms: GRI-3.0 mechanism, GRI-2.11 mechanism and the skeletal and 17 Species mechanisms. The effects of these models on temperature, chemical species and pollutant emissions are studied. A two-dimensional axisymmetric model for premixed methane-air combustion in porous media burner has developed. The finite volume method has used to solve the governing equations of methane-air combustion in inert porous media burner. The results indicate that the present four models have the same accuracy in predicting temperature profiles and the difference between these profiles is not more than 2 %. In addition, the Gri-3.0 mechanism shows the best prediction of NO emission in comparison with experimental data. The 17 Species mechanism shows good agreement in prediction of temperature and pollutant emissions with GRI-3.0, GRI-2.11 and the skeletal mechanisms. Also the effects of wall temperature on the gas temperature and mass fraction of species such as NO and CH₄ are studied.     

Transient three-dimensional startup side load analysis of a regeneratively cooled nozzle

The objective of this effort is to develop a computational methodology to capture the side load physics and to anchor the computed aerodynamic side loads with the available data by simulating the startup transient of a regeneratively cooled, high-aspect-ratio nozzle, hot-fired at sea level. The computational methodology is based on an unstructured-grid, pressure-based, reacting flow computational fluid dynamics and heat transfer formulation, and a transient inlet history based on an engine system simulation. Emphases were put on the effects of regenerative cooling on shock formation inside the nozzle, and ramp rate on side load reduction. The results show that three types of asymmetric shock physics incur strong side loads: the generation of combustion wave, shock transitions, and shock pulsations across the nozzle lip, albeit the combustion wave can be avoided with sparklers during hot-firing. Results from both regenerative cooled and adiabatic wall boundary conditions capture the early shock transitions with corresponding side loads matching the measured secondary side load. It is theorized that the first transition from free-shock separation to restricted-shock separation is caused by the Coanda effect. After which the regeneratively cooled wall enhances the Coanda effect such that the supersonic jet stays attached, while the hot adiabatic wall fights off the Coanda effect, and the supersonic jet becomes detached most of the time. As a result, the computed peak side load and dominant frequency due to shock pulsation across the nozzle lip associated with the regeneratively cooled wall boundary condition match those of the test, while those associated with the adiabatic wall boundary condition are much too low. Moreover, shorter ramp time results show that higher ramp rate has the potential in reducing the nozzle side loads.

---

     

Measuring the coal dust flow in burner pipes

 The results presented give an insight in the coal dust volume measuring system used at the Wilhelmshaven power plant. Two new measuring systems for measuring coal dust volumes and coal dust distributions have been investigated as port of a test. The comparison with a recognised isokinetic process of E.ON Engineering has shown that both measuring systems can measure coal dust volumes in states of inertia. However, the relative evaluation gives a better correspondence of the measured values, because cross-influences (not known to some extent) are not included in the measurement in the first approximation. The analysis of the load following behaviour shows that each measuring system supplies plausible values for itself. However, a comparison of the two shows that there can be considerable differences in individual burner pipes which cannot always be adequately explained at the end of the day. The plausibility check is if critical importance in individual cases. In view of the generally positive experience with the coal dust volume measurements, the Wilhemshaven power plant is in the process of equipping the complete unit with a measuring system of this type. Received on 15 March 2001     

Effects of injection timing on performance and droplet characteristics of a sixteen-valve four cylinder engine

 The performance and droplet characteristics of a sixteen-valve, four cylinder engine operating with combustion in one cylinder have been measured with part load, a speed of 1200 rpm and a stoichiometric mixture of gasoline and air. The indicated mean-effective cylinder pressure was found to be constant with initiation of injection from 150° to 630° of crank angle after top-dead-centre of intake and with a 10% reduction between 30° and 60° which coincided with maxima in the covariance in pressure and in the emissions of unburned hydrocarbon. There was also a tendency for performance to decline with injection after 660°. Measurements with laser- and phase-Doppler velocimeters showed that the number of droplets entering the cylinder was much reduced with injection at crank angles corresponding to closed inlet valves due to evaporation, and that the few large droplets which emerged did not survive until top-dead-centre of compression. In contrast, some of the many droplets associated with injection with the valves open survived to the crank angle of ignition and it is likely that these led to an inhomogeneous charge with poorer flame-front propagation responsible for reduction in performance. Received: 19 February 1996/Accepted: 8 October 1996