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Chapter 8

COMBUSTION MODELLING

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Learning Objectives

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After this chapter you will be able to:

- Understand how CFD treat combustion of gas, particles
- Understand combustion process of a coal particle
- Apply Fluent to simulation gas combustion
- Apply Fluent to simulate pulverised coal combustion

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8.1 Introduction
8.1 Introduction
- Combustion is complex: involves the simultaneous processes
such as turbulence, chemical reaction, heat transfer,…

Reaction

Turbulence Radiation
Combustion

Multiphase Pollution

Prediction of flow, temperatures, species concentrations and

emissions for the design and improvement of combustion.
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8.1 Introduction
+ There are many types of combustion:
- Gaseous fuel combustion
- Liquid fuel combustion: oil spray combustion (droplets)
- Solid fuel combustion: Pulverized coal/biomass combustion,
fluidized beds
 Some models can apply to model combustion in Fluent:
- Gaseous fuel combustion: premixed combustion, non-
premixed combustion, Species transport.
- Particle models
 DPM: volume load ~ 10%, ex. Pulverized coal combustion
 DDPM: volume loading is much larger, ex. fluidized beds
KTGF (kinetic theory of grannular flow)
DDPM+
DEM (Discrete element modeling)
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8.2 Coal particle combustion modelling
8.2 Pulverised coal combustion modelling

Particle modelling can be defined by 4 main stages:

 Inert heating
 Devolatilisation
 Volatile combustion
 Char combustion
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8.1 Introduction
8.2.1 Heating of particle
- The heating-up process is very fast, about 105K/s.
-Heating process includes:
 heating particle to devolatilisation temperature;
 moisture vaporisation.
- The heat transfer: convective and the radiative heat transfer
that occur from the surroundings to the surface of the
particle and the heat conduction within the particle
- The heating rate of the coal particles in can be calculated:

- The heat transfer coefficient, h, is calculated:

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8.1 Introduction
8.2.2 Devolatilisation: a complex process, produces tar (heavy
hydrocarbon CxHyOz), lighter gases (CH4, C2H4, C2H6, CO, CO2,
H2O, H2, etc.) and char (residual solid mainly carbon and ash).
- Classified into 2 groups:
- The global kinetic models: Single-rate, two-step models
 Single-rate model

X is the mass fraction of volatiles,

 Two Step Model

- The network models: FG-DVC, FLASCHAIN, and CPD models,

considered as accurate, however, computational expensive.
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8.1 Introduction
8.2.3 Volatile combustion: complicated if accounting all
reactions significantly computational consumption.
simplification in modelling:
- single hydrocarbon (CxHyOz), light hydrocarbon (CxHy)
- CxHyOzNmSn when including
pollutant emissions NOx and SOx.

 1-step reaction mechanism

 Fluent
 2-step reaction mechanism

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8.1 Introduction
8.2.4 Char combustion: important process, with majority of
the heat being released, combustion process:
 oxygen and energy transport to the surface and the porous
structures of the particles
 reaction that occurs between the oxygen and the carbon
at the internal and surfaces of the char particles

Models developed: diffusion

limited model, the
kinetic/diffusion limited, the
intrinsic mode, the carbon
burnout kinetics (CBK), etc.
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8.3 Radiation modelling
8.3 Radiation modelling: In pulverised coal combustion
 gas products: mainly CO2, H2O.
 particulate matter: soot, fly-ash, char and coal particles.
-The radiative properties are wavelength dependence, size
and shape of the particles and the particle distribution.
-Radiative properties of gas and particles can be simplified as
constants.
 Fluent

(Radiative properties of gas) (Radiative properties of particle)

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Tutorial practice
Tutorial practice
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6

• Define • Create • Create • Define • Solve • Validation

problem geometry mesh BCs, problem and
physics, analyse
properties results

1. Gas combustion:
-Tutorial: Modeling Species Transport and Gaseous
Combustion

2. Coal combustion:
-Tutorial: Multiple Char Reactions (Species transport + DPM)

Computational Fluid Dynamics