Student Name:

Contents
Title: ................................................................................................................................................ 3

Aims and Objectives ....................................................................................................................... 3

Background ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 4

Literature Review............................................................................................................................ 6

Risk Assessment ............................................................................................................................. 8

Gant Chart ....................................................................................................................................... 8

Resources ........................................................................................................................................ 9

References ....................................................................................................................................... 9
Title:
Optimization of De-duster Unit in a Waste Heat Recovery Plant

Aims and Objectives

The main aims and objectives of this study are following

1. To survey different de-duster designs available in the literature

2. To analyze different designs of the de-duster unit for cement industry

3. To achieve optimization of de-duster design

4. To develop and analyze the modified design of the de-duster for cement industry

Background
In the construction boom of 19th century, the demand for the raw material increased tremendously.

The most common and important construction material was the cement. When the mass production

of the cement was started, it required large cement manufacturing plants. In these cement

manufacturing plant rotary kiln was a prime component. Different types of rotary kiln like wet kiln

and dry kiln was being used in the process. Large amount of fuel was burnt in these rotary kilns to

produce clinker. Hot flue gases of temperature between 600 to 1000 oC were produced in the rotary

kiln as a byproduct. These gases had tremendous amount of heat energy going in the environment

as waste heat. This was cost intensive as well dangerous to the environment. On strategy to

optimize the system was to reuse these flue gas in a waste heat recovery mechanism in order to

increase the efficiency of the process. These waste heat was used to produce steam that can be
used for power generation or other applications. Following figure show waste heat recovery plant

in early 19th century.

Figure 1: WHR from kiln exhaust gas for preheating combustion air around 1906

Currently, the cement industry like other energy intensive industries like steel manufacturing

consumes about 5% of global energy. Rotary kiln and attached accessories like de-dusters are

main consumers of energy. Therefore, In the recent era, the highly efficient waste recovery systems

are developed. These unit are being used all over the world in cement, petrochemical, power and

process industry. In the cement industry, in order to control the dust coming with the flue gases,

the de-duster units are used. When the flue gases passes through them, the settle down and provide

cleaner flow gases to the waste heat recovery unit for enhanced efficiency. Therefore, good de-

duster design could reduce global energy consumption in cement industry.

Introduction
In the recent times, the environment regulations are becoming stricter due to global warming

threats. Along with the regulation, the cost of the energy input to the cement industry is also

increasing tremendously due to the economic pressure. Therefore, a need for highly efficient waste
heat recovery units was required. The design and development of the waste heat recovery units is

a complex task. It requires good design and operation knowledge of steam cycles and optimized

furnace processes as well. All the previously developed knowledge would help in designing of the

innovative design of the waste heat recovery units. Another approach to increase plant efficiency

is to look for different applications of the waste heat at the plant. The energy recovered from the

waste heat can be utilized in power production or processing of chemicals. The steam produce can

also be used as running smaller steam turbines acting as prime mover to different rotary machines.

In this proposal different innovative designs of the de-duster unit used in the waste heat recovery

units are discussed. As the flue gases of the cement plant also includes cement dust within them.

This dust can deposit on the tube of the boiler, hence, decrease the heat transfer to the water.

Therefore, the steam production could be seriously hampered. A good design of de-duster would

decrease the dust quantity in the flue gases and more amount of energy could be harnessed from

the flue gases. The proposal includes modelling and working of de-duster designs to select

optimized de-duster design for the waste heat recovery unit.

In recent years, waste heat recovery in the cement industry has attracted more and more attention.

Environmental regulations, public funding, as well as required revamps of old de-dusting systems

lead steel plant operators to discuss and to evaluate possibilities of recovering waste heat.
 Figure 2: Common de-dusting unit (Bag house) in cement plant

Experimental evaluation of different de-dusting designs is capital intensive. As the finite element

analysis techniques are becoming more and common across the globe, therefore, these techniques

can be used to analyze different designs with least possible amount of resources required. For the

purpose multiphase modelling with dust particles as discreet phase are required. The ANSYS

fluent software can be used for the multiphase modelling of the dust deposition of de-dusters. An

optimize design of de-duster will help in reducing the dust level in the flue gases, therefore, dust

particles would not deposit on the boiler fins and higher heat transfer efficiency can be achieved.

Literature Review
Usually the de-duster units consists of cyclones. Cyclones are cylindrical stationery equipment

that separate the dust particles from the flue gases coming from the kiln. The dust particles would

settle down at the bottom of the cycle where dust collectors would collect the dust. The main

operating principle is the use of centrifugal force. When the flue gases enter the cyclone, they can

direction in spiral movement and dust particle being heavier than the flue gases collide with the

walls of the cyclone. Hence, the dust is separated in the cyclone. A good design cyclone would

have lower pressure drop as well higher collection efficiency. There are two different popular
designs of tangential type cyclone by Stairmand (Stairmand 2009) and Lapple. The Stairmand

design (Shephered and Lapple 2008) has very good collection efficiency as compare to the Lapple

design of the cyclone. While the Lapple design have lower pressure drop as compare to the

Stairmand design. These designs involve several geometric ratios as in the below figure.

Dimensionless numbers like Euler number will indicate pressure drop in the design while the cut-

off size diameter would indicate collection efficiency.

Figure 3: Geometric ratios of the Stairmand and Lapple cyclones

A good experimental model would provide guidelines for a better cyclone designs. A number of

experimental studies had been presented in the literature to study different effects of geometric

and operational variations (Bernardo, Mori et al. 2006). The results shows the optimum conditions

for a specific cyclone design. Different device designs had also been proposed by Ji and Xiong to

enhance the performance and efficiency of the cyclones (Ji, Xiong et al. 2009). But these were

simpler studies that varied single parameters and checked their effects on the cyclone efficiency.

In the real case scenarios, the performance and efficiency is dependent multiple parameters at the
same time. In the optimization of the cyclone, multi-parameter analysis is required like

optimization with respect to pressure drop and collection efficiency at the same time.

As the experimental and empirical models are very expensive to make. Therefore, computational

fluid dynamics offer an alternative to the experimental approach that can be reliably used to predict

the performance and collection efficiency of the different cyclone designs. The effect of different

optimization was studied using computational fluid dynamics. Currently, different studies are

underway in which modern neural network and simplex method for improving pressure drop and

cut-off ratio (Lee, Yang et al. 2006). In another study by Safikhani et al. performed analysis by

variation of different design parameters (Ds, Ls, Lc and Lco) (Safikhani, Akhavan-Behabadi et al.

2011). The research also used neural networks and algorithms for optimization.

Risk Assessment
During the optimization of the de-dusting unit, the environmental effect of the output exhaust need

to be considered. More dust and heat going to the environment would produce adverse

environmental effects. The new design of the de-duster will be able to reduce more dust and hence,

recover more heat in the subsequent steps. Therefore, the environmental risk will reduce due to

better design.

Gant Chart

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Literature Review
Optimization techniques
Modelling on SolidWorks
Static Structural Analysis on Ansys
CFD Analysis on ANSYS Fluent
Modified design recommendation
Resources
Following software will be used in this project:

1. SolidWorks

2. ANSYS Workbench

a. Static Structural Module

b. Fluent Module

References
Bernardo, S., M. Mori, A. Peres and R. Dionisio (2006). "3-D computational fluid dynamics for
gas and gas-particle flows in a cyclone with different inlet section angles." Powder Technology
162(3): 190-200.
Ji, Z., Z. Xiong, X. Wu, H. Chen and H. Wu (2009). "Experimental investigations on a cyclone
separator performance at an extremely low particle concentration." Powder Technology 191(3):
254-259.
Lee, J. W., H. J. Yang and D. Y. Lee (2006). "Effect of the cylinder shape of a long-coned cyclone
on the stable flow-field establishment." Powder Technology 165(1): 30-38.
Safikhani, H., M. Akhavan-Behabadi, N. Nariman-Zadeh and M. M. Abadi (2011). "Modeling and
multi-objective optimization of square cyclones using CFD and neural networks." Chemical
Engineering Research and Design 89(3): 301-309.
Shephered, C. and C. Lapple (2008). "Flow pattern and pressure drop in cyclone dust collectors."
Industrial & Engineering Chemistry 31(8): 972-984.
Stairmand, C. J. (2009). "The design and performance of cyclone separators." Trans. Instn. Chem.
Engrs. 29: 356-383.