Energy & Fuels, Vol.19, No.4, 1536-1541, 2005
Numerical simulation of ash vaporization during pulverized coal combustion in the laboratory-scale single-burner furnace
CFD tools have been developed to effectively simulate complex, reacting, multiphase flows that exist in utility boilers. In this paper, a model of ash vaporization was established and integrated into a self-developed CFD code to predict ash vaporization in the coal combustion process. Experimental data from a single-particle combustion was used to validate the above model. The calibrated model was then applied to simulate the ash vaporization in a 92.9 kW laboratory-scale single-burner furnace. The effects of different combustion conditions, including air staging, on the ash vaporization were investigated. The results showed that the fraction of ash vaporization is mostly sensitive to coal particle temperature. Ash vaporization primarily occurred after a short interval along the coal particle trajectories when the particle temperatures increased to 1800 K. Air staging influenced the ash vaporization by changing the gas temperature distribution in the furnace. The simulation results showed that the more extreme the staging condition, the lower the overall peak temperature, and hence the lower the amount of ash vaporization.