engleski

CFD modelling of biomass combustion in an experimental drop tube furnace

Over the last five decades combustion of biomass is increasingly gaining on importance. This is a result of the effect of global warming and particularly because carbon dioxide is one of the primary greenhouse gases. Combustion of biomass is a very important mode of fuel utilization in electric and heat power generation industry and some process industries. The adjustment of existing pulverized coal combustion units for biomass combustion and development of new ones is often very demanding, and time and cost consuming. One possibility for the control and investigation of the biomass combustion process are CFD simulations. Early comprehensive information, parametric studies and initial conclusions that can be gained from CFD simulations are very important in handling modern combustion units. Together with experiments and theory, CFD has become an integral component of combustion research. It has been used in the development process for understanding the complex phenomena occurring within the combustion units. The purpose of this paper is to present a mathematical model of biomass combustion implemented into a commercial code AVL FIRE®. This code was used to simulate turbulent flow field, temperature field, concentrations of the reactants and products as well as the interaction of particles with the gas phase, by numerically solving the equations that govern these processes. For biomass combustion, the effects of biomass drying, the degradation during devolatilization, generation of gaseous species and char burnout were taken into account. A three dimensional geometry of an experimental drop tube furnace was used for numerical simulations which were compared with experimental results.

CFD; Biomass; Combustion; Drop tube furnace

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