Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

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Journal of the Energy Institute

journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-the-energy-
institute

Simulation of ash deposition in different furnace temperature with a

2D dynamic mesh model
Hao Zhou*, Kun Zhang, Yawei Li, Jiakai Zhang, Mingxi Zhou
State Key Laboratory of Clean Energy Utilization, Institute for Thermal Power Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Ash deposit on the heat exchangers reduces the heat transfer efficiency and even threatens the operation
Received 30 August 2018 of the equipment. The tool of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) allows for better understanding of the
Received in revised form deposit formation and the prediction of the process. This paper presents an improved CFD model to
11 December 2018
reproduce the growth of ash deposition on a temperature-controlled probe in a pilot-scale furnace with
Accepted 13 December 2018
the commercial software Fluent16.0. Dynamic mesh technique is included to investigate the shape
Available online 20 December 2018
variation of the ash deposit during the deposit growth. The model is improved by taking the changing
surface temperature of the deposition into consideration. The deposition efficiency, surface temperature
Keywords:
Ash deposition and heat flux through the deposit are monitored as the iteration. Three cases are presented to investigate
CFD the influence of furnace temperature (1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K). The results show that the deposition
Dynamic mesh efficiency increases with the increasing surface temperature of the deposit while the mass flow of
Particle behavior impaction decreases with the changing flow field. The growth rates of the deposit for the three cases are
0.064, 0.079 and 0.103 mm/min within the simulation time which is consistent with experiment results.
The simulated surface temperature shows the same trend of the experimental values. The heat flux in the
simulation decreases with a range of 38.2%, 50.3% and 50% for the three cases, respectively. This method
of modelling can be used to predict the growth of deposit accurately.
© 2019 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In power plant boilers and industrial boilers, ash related problems are factors that significantly determine the design and operation of the
equipment [1]. Ash deposition on the heat exchanger will decrease the heat transfer efficiency and aggravate the corrosion of the metal [2],
which may even cause unscheduled outage of boilers. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the ash deposition process for the safe and
stable operation of the actual boiler equipment.
Many efforts have been paid to experimentally investigate slagging and fouling behavior on heat exchange tube in recent years [3e5]. As
a tool of predicting and further understanding of the formation of deposition, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has also been widely
used. The computational domain used in modelling were entire practical boiler [6e9], pilot-furnace [10] or the region containing the heat
transfer tube/bundles [11e13]. In the numerical simulation, the parameters required are obtained from the experiments (namely physical
conditions and fuel analysis). Flow fluid, turbulence, particle random motion, near-wall sticking process and energy equation even com-
bustion codes [5,10] are involved in the solution. Deposition mass rate and the heat transfer performance are both of interest by ‘steady’ or
‘transient’ method. The first method neglects the time terms in the solution so that time-dependent deposit growth is not available [14e16]
while the ‘transient’ method is more accurate [17e19]. The predicted shape of deposition is also visible in some studies with the ‘transient’
method [11,12,20].
Ash deposition sub-model is of great importance to determine the fate of a particle when hitting the surface. As mentioned in literatures,
the sticking probability can be calculated by the critical viscosity model [8,10,21], the physical equilibrium model [22e24] and the molten
phase ratio model [6,13]. The second rule is determined by critical velocity, critical angle and elastic potential, while the molten phase ratio
model is obtained by thermodynamic equilibrium software. The critical viscosity is generally artificially defined according to the simulation

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: itpepc@gmail.com, zhouhao@zju.edu.cn (H. Zhou).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joei.2018.12.006
1743-9671/© 2019 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1744 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

results and varies among studies, and it is in the range from 8 to 108. The calculation of particle viscosity is based on the temperature and ash
composition of particles, presented by Walsh et al. [25]. The physical equilibrium model is normally used to simulate the deposition of
medium and low temperature heat transfer surface (e.g. recovery boilers [12]), and the effective Young's modulus is changing with particle
temperature and size [22]. Wieland et al. [26] compared a variety of deposition sub-models and results showed that the molten phase ratio
model was more accurate.
In previous studies, the mechanisms of particle transport near the surface were carried out as inertial force (including gravity), ther-
mophoretic force, condensation and turbulent diffusion [16e19]. Inertial force plays the main role for larger ash particles (>10 mm), while
the thermophoretic force is dominant for fine particles (<10 mm). Yang et al. [19] investigated ash deposit behavior for Zhundong lignite
combustion based on the mechanism of inertial force, thermophoretic force and alkali vapour condensation. It was found that the effect of
condensation to the deposition is less significant compared with the rest. Wacławiak et al. [11,17] reproduced the deposit growth around the
tubes in convection section based on inertial force. García Pe
rez [12] modelled the deposition of ash in tubes with different tube transversal
spacings. Tang et al. [20] developed CFD models to investigate the effect of parameters (pitch, tube shape and aligned/staggered
arrangement) on fouling considering the sub-model of deposition and removal. The works of Wacławiak [11,17], García Pe
rez [12] and Tang
[20] all predicted the changing shape of the deposition with the use of dynamic mesh technique, which was more suitable for dynamic
accumulation of particles. Nevertheless, the history of the heat transfer properties (the surface temperature and the thermal conductivity of
the deposit) were simplified or neglected in their studies, which differed with the experimental condition. Furthermore, intensive study is
needed to investigate the particle deposition behavior with the growth of the deposit.
Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate the deposition process on a cooled probe by CFD modelling coupled with dynamic mesh
technique. Inertial force and thermophoretic force are considered in the deposition mechanism. Different furnace temperature conditions
(1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K) are simulated. The particle behavior on the coated surface, the deposit growth and the heat transfer change are
studied during the deposition process. Further analyzed experimental data [4] is used to improve the accuracy of simulation. Moreover, the
modelling results are compared with the experimental data. The comprehensive deposition model here would help to predict the ash
deposition on the heat transfer equipment.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Case study

2.1.1. Furnace and experimental conditions

The ash deposition tests were conducted in a 300 kW coal-fired furnace [4], and the experimental system is shown in Fig. 1. The overall
systems can be divided into routes of coal, air, flue gas, circulating oil and cooling water. The furnace is composed of a chamber and a swirl
burner at the top. The height and inner diameter of the chamber are 3950 mm and 350 mm respectively. A temperature-controlled probe
was inserted into the furnace when the experimental condition was stable. Oil circulating system was used to control the temperature of the
probe at 503 K. The quench system was a heat exchanger with flowing water to lower the temperature of the flue gas. Amounts of ash
particles were collected in the cyclone separator, and the bag filter was used to remove the remaining dust. Meanwhile, a charge-coupled
device (CCD) was placed on the other side for monitoring the deposits growth on the probe. For a better understanding of heat transfer
characteristics, heat flux was maintained off-line with two thermocouples in the radical direction of the probe (Fig. 2).

Fig. 1. Sketch map of experimental system: dimensions in mm.

 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1745

Fig. 2. Sketch map of the deposition sampling probe.

A range of scenarios of furnace temperature have been experimentally investigated on ash deposition with the chamber [27,28]. The
experimental data for different furnace temperature is further analyzed in this paper. The feed coal of slagging experiments was Shanmei
(SM) coal produced from Shanxi in China. Before the slagging experiment, packages of SM coal was dried with the method of sun exposure,
and the length of time should be more than 20 h. The properties, including proximate and ultimate analysis are summarized in Table 1. Ash
compositions are also listed in the Table 1 which are analyzed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (PANalytical Axios). The continuous feed
rate of fuel is 45 kg/h, which could be used for calculation of mass rate and ash contents in the simulation. The experimental conditions are
listed in the Table 2. Variations of furnace temperature are considered in the experiments.

2.1.2. Analysis of experimental data

In this paper, numerical simulation is used to investigate the influence of different furnace temperature on the deposition process. To
improve the accuracy of the deposition modelling, some extra parameters should be added to the simulation process. Therefore, the
experimental data was further analyzed by theoretical calculation.
Firstly, the calculation of heat flux through the probe is simplified with heat conduction in the direction of radius. Therefore, the formula
of cylinder wall can be used to calculate heat flux through the probe with the acquired temperature data:

lðt2  t1 Þ
q¼
 (1)
r2
r ln r1

Table 1
Properties of the SM coal.

Ash composition (wt.%) Proximate analysis (wt.%, db)

Item Value Item Value

Na2O 0.74 Ash 9.81

MgO 1.08 Volatile matter 33.15
Al2O3 20.22 Fixed carbon 57.04
SiO2 48.58 HHV(MJ/kg) 29.74

P2O5 0.25 Ultimate analysis (wt.%, db)

K2O 1.26 C 72.42

CaO 21.23 H 4.38
TiO2 0.73 O 12.11
MnO2 0.25 N 0.77
Fe2O3 5.65 S 0.31

Table 2
Experimental conditions.

Item Value

excess air ratio 1.2

furnace temperature around the probe(K) ~1473
~1523
~1573
oil temperature in the probe(K) 503
oxygen content in flue gas (%) 4.0e5.0
duration of the slagging time (min) 220
1746 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

where l represents the thermal conductivity of the probe metal, t1 and t2 denote inner and outer surface temperature of the probe, r
represents the radius of the deposition probe, r1 and r2 denote the distance between point B/A and the center of the probe respectively.
Secondly, the heat flux through the deposition can be calculated considering radiation and convection heat transfer on the side of the
deposition surface or internal heat conduction. And heat conduction in the circumferential direction is neglected here. According to the
Fourier's law, the heat flux in the radical direction remains constant, three equations are listed:
 

qo ¼ h tg  ts þ εs t 4g  t 4s (2)

Nu  k
h¼ (3)
Dp

Nu ¼ 0:683  Re0:466  Pr1=3 (4)

ts  t2
qi ¼ ldep (5)
Dddep

qo ¼ qi (6)
where in equation (2), qo is heat flux transferred from the gas to the deposition, h is the convective heat transfer coefficient between the gas
and deposition, tg and ts represent temperature of the flue gas and deposition surface respectively, ε denotes the emissivity coefficient of the
deposition, s is Stefan-Boltzmann constant: 5.67  108W/m2$K4; in equation (3), Nu is the average Nusselt number calculated by the
Renolds number and the Prandtl number (Eq. (4)), k is the heat conductivity of the gas, Dp is the external diameter of the probe; in equation
(5), ldep is the effective thermal conductivity of deposition, t2 is the temperature of outer surface of the probe, Dddep is the thickness of the
deposit.
In the above equations, almost all parameters were directly measured online or off-line in the experiment except for the effective thermal
conductivity and the surface temperature of deposition. However, ts can be solved by Newton's method using the data of heat flux with the
software MATLAB in Eq. (2). After that the effective thermal conductivity of deposition can be calculated in Eq. (5). In this paper, experi-
mental data in conditions of 1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K are analyzed. The relation between surface temperature of ash deposition and the
deposit growth time is shown in Fig. 3. It is found that with the increasing height of the deposition, the surface temperature of deposition
experiences two stage (sharp rising and stable stage). The final surface temperature of the deposition of the three cases are about 1208 K,
1272 K and 1380 K respectively, showing that higher furnace temperature leads to higher surface temperature. Derived effective thermal
conductivity of ash deposition as function of the thickness of ash deposition is shown in Fig. 4. The calculation of the effective thermal
conductivity of deposits is accomplished with the history of the surface temperature of deposits. The same method has been applied to
estimate the effective thermal conductivity of ash deposit for Zhundong coal [28]. In fact, the deposit in situ is composed of initial layer,
sintered layer and slag layer, and the sintering degree of the three layers are different. It will be our further work to accurately measure the
conductivity of deposits relating to the structure of the deposits. It can be seen that with the increasing thickness of the coated deposit, the
effective thermal conductivity almost increases linearly. The change is due to the sintering occurrence and the decreased porosity. It is
abnormal that the highest furnace temperature denotes to the lowest thermal conductivity among the three cases. This is raised by un-
burned carbon in the deposition due to decreasing residence time of the particles. The particles burning in the deposition will further affect
the structure of the deposition. The changing effective thermal conductivity of deposit is considered in the process of simulation. Mean-
while, the calculated surface temperature of ash deposition will be taken to validate the modelling results.

Fig. 3. Time-dependent surface temperature of ash deposit.

 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1747

Fig. 4. Effective thermal conductivity of ash deposit as function of thickness.

2.2. Physical model

A schematic diagram of the computational domain is shown in Fig. 5. The width and length of the domain are 350 mm (in accordance
with the inner diameter of the chamber) and 1120 mm. The ring at the center of the domain represents the deposition probe, with the
external diameter of 40 mm and the thickness of 1 mm.
In view of applying dynamic mesh technique which will be discussed later, triangular cells are used in the grid. Spring based smoothing is
limited to triangular (tetrahedral in 3D) cells. Therefore, the mesh is in pure triangular paved schemes. To ensure accurate prediction of
impaction efficiency in the neighborhood of deposition probe surface, a fully fine meshing around the probe is required [12,19,23].
Therefore, the initial size of the probe is 0.2 mm, which implies the gas-solid interface is meshed with 628 nodes. The growth rate of the grid
is set to 1.25 which controls the gradual change of the mesh size, and maximum size is 0.5 mm. There are 49636 cells for the whole domain
and the final mesh is shown in Fig. 6. The initial wall temperature of the probe is 453 K, 503 and 513 K for the cases, respectively.

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the computational domain.

Fig. 6. Meshing of the computational domain.

1748 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

In this study, three cases with different furnace temperature have been investigated, namely 1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K. The velocity of
upstream gas (O2-5.0%, CO2-16.0%, CO-0.2%, N2-78.1%) [4] is set to be 5.6 m/s. The thermal conductivity and viscosity of the mixture in Fluent
are calculated with following equations:
P 1=2
y mi M i
mm ¼ P i 1=2
(7)
yi Mi

P 1=3
y li M i
lm ¼ P i 1=3
(8)
yi M i

where the subscript m means the gas mixture; the subscript i means the component gas; y denotes the mole fraction; M represents
molecular weight. In different cases of furnace temperature, the properties of the mixture gas are calculated properly. The calculation of the
parameters are both based on the temperature averaged by gas side (Tg ) and oil side (Toil ). In different cases of furnace temperature, the
properties of the mixture gas are calculated properly.
And the flow rate of ash is 0.021 kg/s. The ash particle size is based on Rosin-Rammler distribution, which ranges between 1 mm and
62 mm with a mean diameter of 16 mm and a spread parameter of 0.7. The temperature of the particles is set to be same with the inlet gas,
which is 1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K for the three cases respectively.

2.3. Discrete phase model

The motion of a discrete phase particle is predicted by a Lagrangian approach. First the parcels of particles are uniformly injected from the
inlet boundary condition. Then the gas phase and the discrete phase are solved in order within iterations. The particle momentum equation
is given as:


!
d u p 18mCd Re ! !  ! rp  r !
¼ , u  up þ g þ F (9)
dt rp d2p 24 rp
! !
where u p , rp , dp are the velocity, density and diameter of particles, respectively; u , r represent the velocity and density of the gas phase; Cd
!
denotes the drag coefficient, and F means other forces available in Fluent (such as the thermophoretic force, the Saffman lift force, the
virtual force and the pressure gradient force) or by user-defined (for example the electric and magnetic field force).
In this paper, in addition to the main drag force, both the gravity and the thermophoretic force are considered. The thermophoretic force
is thanks to the temperature gradient between the gas stream and the deposition surface which needs to be paid attention in modelling. The
effect of turbulence on particles was predicted by stochastic tracking. Discrete Random Walk Model and Random Eddy Lifetime were
activated in Fluent.

2.4. Molten fraction based sticking model

Driven by the inertial force and the thermophoretic force, the particles will cross over the probe along the streamline or impact on the
surface of the probe. Therefore, it is critical to determine the particles whether sticking or rebounding. In general, a variety of criteria have
been proposed in researches among which the molten fraction based sticking model was proved promising [26]. Molten fraction in ash
particles can be calculated by chemical equilibrium calculation, and the sticking probability is resolved by the molten fraction:
 
 
hstick ¼ hp Tp þ 1  hp Tp hs ðTs Þ (10)

where hstick is the over-all sticking probability of the parcel p; hp ðTp Þ is the melt fraction of the parcel at the parcel temperature (Tp ), and
hs ðTs Þ is the melt fraction of the ash deposition at its surface temperature (Ts ).
In this paper, the software Factsage 5.2 is employed to carry out the chemical equilibrium calculation. The gas volume fraction is fixed:
O2-5.0%, CO2-16.0%, CO-0.2%, N2-78.1% [4], and the ash constituents of SM are listed in Table 1. The melt phases chosen are the (SLAGA). The
temperature range is selected between 1083 K and 1693 K with a temperature interval of 10 K. Then the scattered points are fitted by certain
no-linear/linear curves in sections, and the fitting formula is selected according to the shape of the curves. The calculated results of liquid
slag fraction and the fitting results were shown in Fig. 7. And the fitting functions of the regions are listed in Table 3.

2.5. Transient method

Fig. 8 shows a brief flow chart of simulating the ash deposition growth. A transient method is used to reappear the time-dependent issue.
In a time step, flow field is calculated first and the Lagrangian particle tracking is performed later. Meanwhile, the deposition rate and arrived
particles properties are summarized at once the parcel hits the probe face. User defined memories in Fluent are applied to store the in-
formation of interest. After a small period (200 time steps of a cycle with the time step 0.005s), the UDMs are reset to 0 and a new cycle of
calculation starts. At the end of a cycle, the mesh nodes near the probe and the deposition surface temperature are updated.
However, it takes about one hour and a half for computing a cycle (1 s) even in parallel compute nodes. Simulating a case of 100min
deposition growth is unrealistic in this way. Therefore, an assumption is made that in every stage of deposit growth the deposition rate
keeps constant. Here, the stage is selected 120 s. So some accumulated properties (impacting mass and deposition mass) are 120 times value
of one cycle. In other words, the mesh and the surface temperature are updated every 2 min. Computing time issue is resolved in this way.
 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1749

Fig. 7. Calculated results of liquid slag fraction and fitting curves.

Table 3
Fitting functions of molten fraction curve.

Temperature regions (K) Molten fraction (wt. %)

T  1083 0
1083 < T  1123 2.20949E63*(T/7.56446)þ14.99580
1123 < T  1353 3.06416E-13*(T/(42.58044))þ15.83049
1353 < T  1463 1.52408E-9*(T/61.49137)þ31.32871
1463 < T  1663 0.00525*(T/179.92425)þ44.86898
T > 1663 58.17382 þ 0.02406*T

Fig. 8. Calculating process of a case in Fluent.

Two time scale here can be distinguished by their units: ‘second’ refers to simulation time in Fluent and ‘minute’ refers to the real growth
time of coating deposition.

2.6. Dynamic mesh technique

As mentioned in section 2.1, the surface of the probe is divided into 628 faces (namely 628 nodes in total). The subscripts i and j (range
from 0 to 627) are used to identify the location of nodes and faces. Fig. 9 is a sketch map demonstrating the calculation of the displacement of
1750 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

Fig. 9. The sketch map for calculating the displacement of nodes.

nodes. First, the deposition mass rate is stored in user-defined memories of each face, and the displacement of a node is determined by its
adjacent two faces. The displacement direction of node i is calculated with normal vectors of j-1 and j.

Dhj1 þ Dhj
Dhi ¼ (11)
2

! ! !
A i ¼ A j1 þ A j (12)
! ! !
where A i represents the displacement direction of node i; A j1 and A j refer to normal vector of face j1 and j.
The deposit porosity varies with the increasing thickness of the deposit. And the overall porosity will decrease as a consequence of
sintering. In this work, the initial porosity is 0.6 and the new deposit porosity is calculated assuming that the liquid slag fills the pores as
follows [19,29]:
 
V
εdep ¼ 1  ð1  ε0 Þ þ l ð1  ε0 Þ (13)
Vs
where εdep is the new deposit porosity, ε0 is the initial porosity, Vl and Vs are the volume of the liquid and solid phase. The calculation of the
ratio between the volume of the liquid and solid phase is conducted by chemical equilibrium and the density of liquid phase is estimated
[30].
The height growth of each face is calculated by the accumulated mass, deposition density, deposit porosity and face area. And the
constant of 120 means the time scale of 2 min for one time step actually:

mj
Dhj ¼ 120 
 (14)
rp 1  εdep Sj

However, the distribution of mass flow of deposition on the probe surface is not ideally uniform thanks to the Discrete Random Walk
model. Too large accumulation of deposition mass and the uncontrolled displacement direction will make grids overlap in solid region
(Fig. 10) which is called “negative volume” in Fluent solver. Then the strategy of averting the issue is focused on these two aspects: absorbing
the large accumulation and adjusting the displacement direction.
Along the perimeter of the probe, the faces are divided into 45 groups in the counter-clockwise direction, and each group contains 14
faces except for the 45th group. At the same group, the growth rate of deposition is averaged which means the nodes in the same group get a
consistent displacement. Then the differences among groups are handled by the weighed mean method:

Fig. 10. Negative volume formation: overlap in solid region.

 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1751

4k2 hm2 þ 4k1 hm1 þ 4k hm þ 4kþ1 hmþ1 þ 4kþ2 hmþ2

Dh0m ¼ (15)
4k2 þ 4k1 þ 4k þ 4kþ1 þ 4kþ2
where the script m means the number of the group; 4k from ke2 to kþ2 denote the weighing factor of five groups in succession. 4k2 ¼
4kþ2 ¼ 2; 4k1 ¼ 4kþ1 ¼ 3; 4k ¼ 6.
However, the grids between two adjacent groups still have the tendency of negative volume. Therefore the dihedral angle (refers to the
angle between two continuous faces) is calculated by codes at the sensitive position (Fig. 9). Then the cosine of the angle is compared with
the cosine of 167. If the calculated value is smaller than the critical value, the node's coordinate will be updated to the center of gravity of
the triangle (also shown in Fig. 9) as follows:

0 xi1 þ xi þ xiþ1
xi ¼
3
(16)
0 yi1 þ yi þ yiþ1
yi ¼
3

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Particles of impacting and deposition

Fig. 11 shows the simulated deposition efficiency of ash particles which is defined as the ratio of the sticking mass and the impacting
mass. The time interval here is selected as 2 s of simulation time. It can be seen that the deposition efficiency increases and the mass of
impact decreases with the increase of deposition time. This is because the shape of deposit is changed during the simulation and the surface
of windward becomes more streamlined which will be further discussed in 3.2, then fewer particles will hit the face. The overall increase of
the deposition efficiency is due to the increasing surface temperature. According to the molten fraction based model particles are more

Fig. 11. Mass flow of impact and deposition versus flow time in Fluent for two cases.
1752 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

inclined to stick rather than rebound. Among the three cases, the deposition mass flow increases with higher furnace temperature, which
will further affect the growth rate of the deposit (in 3.2). The result is in consistence with the study of the literature [19]. Higher sticking
probability is achieved with higher furnace temperature. The final deposition efficiency of the 1473 K and 1523 cases are 59% and 68%, which
is lower than 80% of the case 1573 K.
Sampling of particles impacting and depositing on the surface is conducted in the numerical process (Figs. 12 and 13), and the length of
sampling time is 2 min (namely one time step). Only the upper half is considered due to the symmetry of the probe, which is divided into 6
regions with the interval of 30 . It is observed that the average diameters of particles approaching and hitting the upwind side of the
deposition surface are in the range of 40e50 mm, while the particles hitting the leeward are almost below 10 mm. It is because larger particles
are mainly driven by inertial force and will impact the surface directly. Smaller particles will sweep around the probe and then affected by
the temperature gradient and Karman vortex street to impact the leeward of the probe. Average diameter of the particles sticking on the
surface ranges in 45e55 mm. It also can be inferred that deposition takes place at the upwind side mostly. The mean diameter of particles
impacting the probe distributes the same as the literature [17].

3.2. Geometric prediction of deposition

Fig. 14 depicts the shape of deposition during the formation process, which is accomplished by the dynamic mesh technique. It is
observed that ash deposits mainly form at the windward side of the probe while the leeward side is free of deposition. The measurement of
the thickness was calculated at the upwind side of the tube [4]. The updated mesh is similar with the work of Wacławiak et al. [11,17]. The
difference is that their study was about particulate fouling. And the initial deposition growth within 0e10 min differs between the three
cases. This is because higher temperature of the furnace means sufficient liquid-phase contained in particles, then overall sticking efficiency
comes up based on the model. The maximum height of the deposition in simulation is compared with actual measurement data in Fig. 15.
Here M.V. and E.V. refer to modelling values and experimental values, respectively. It is found that overall modelled values are larger than
experimental ones with a deviation of 0.36 mm, 0.77 mm and 0.8 mm for the cases of 1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K respectively. The deposition

Fig. 12. Mean diameter of particles impacting the surface in 1573 K case.

Fig. 13. Mean diameter of particles sticking on the surface in 1573 K case.
 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1753

Fig. 14. Ash deposit shape prediction for three cases.

Fig. 15. Thickness of ash deposit versus time for three cases.

growth rates in the simulation of the three cases are 0.064, 0.079 and 0.103 mm/min. It is observed that the probe in higher furnace
temperature is more inclined to be coated with deposit because of the larger deposition mass flow on the surface (Fig. 11). However, deposit
removal/shedding mechanisms is not considered in the simulation. This will make the results of the deposit (e.g. deposition mass on the
1754 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756

probe and thickness) larger than the experimental data. The model in this study is only applicable to predict the deposition without
shedding, and it can be improved by adding the sub-model of deposit removal.

3.3. Heat transfer prediction

The contour of the temperature nearby the deposit-coated probe in case of 1573 K is shown in Fig. 16. The duration of deposit formation is
100 min. It is observed that with the deposition formed in front of the probe, temperature distribution differs apparently in the upwind side
and leeward side. And the predicted surface temperature of the deposit is also compared with the calculated value in Fig. 17. It is found that
the tendency between the simulation results and experimental data is coincident: the temperature experiences a rapid growth in the initial
stage and keeps stable with the further development of deposition. The final temperature differences between the modelling and

Fig. 16. Temperature distribution around the deposit-coated probe.

Fig. 17. Surface temperature of ash deposit versus time for three cases.

Fig. 18. Heat flux through the probe versus time for three cases.
 H. Zhou et al. / Journal of the Energy Institute 92 (2019) 1743e1756 1755

experimental values at 80 min of the three cases are 7.3, 22.4 and 8.2 K, which prove the reliability of the simulation. As for the simulated
heat flux through the probe (shown in Fig. 18), it is observed that the trends of modelling values are in agreement with experimental ones.
The heat flux first decreases significantly and later tend to be stable. The appearance is due to the thermal conductivity of the initial deposit
is low, and it gets higher degree of sintering [4,31]. The heat flux decreases about 38.2%, 50.3% and 50.0% of the initial value of heat flux for
the three cases, which means the heat transfer crisis of the heat exchanger. It has to be admitted that the heat flux value in Fluent is
calculated automatically with the sum of convection and radiation heat transfer at the side of the surface. It will be more promising to take
the heat transfer inside the deposition/probe into consideration. Therefore the heat transfer comparison between the experimental and
modelling values is based on the Fourier's law.

4. Conclusion

This study presented a CFD model based on a pilot-scale furnace to investigate the ash deposit formation on the temperature-controlled
probe. Extra UDF codes are added to the bag of software Fluent 16.0. The shape variation of the deposition is considered with the dynamic
mesh technique. Three cases are involved to study the influence of the furnace temperature (1473 K, 1523 K and 1573 K) on the deposition
process. Experimental data is further analyzed to validate the model including the deposit growth and heat transfer characteristics.
The innovation of this paper is the calculation of the surface temperature of deposition during the simulation. And additional smoothing
method is applied in the process of dynamic mesh.
It is shown that the overall impaction mass flow decreases with the growth of deposit, which is mainly due to the influence of the deposit
shape on the flow field around the surface. The deposition efficiency increases during the process due to higher surface temperature, with
59%, 68% and 80% for the three cases. Larger particles tend to stick on the windward side of the probe, which results in deposition directly.
The dynamic mesh technique equipped model predicts the shape of the deposition successfully. The sub-model of particle removal on the
surface will make results more accurate. The growth rates of deposition in the cases are 0.064, 0.079 and 0.103 mm/min which means higher
furnace temperature denotes severe deposition. The dynamic value of thermal conductivity of ash deposit is considered in the simulation. It
is noticed that the surface temperature of deposit increases rapidly in the initial stage and then increase slowly as the deposit build up. The
final temperature error between the model and experiment at 80 min of the three cases are 7.3, 22.4 and 8.2 K. In contrast, the heat flux
through the probe decreases significantly first and then decreases slowly as the development of deposition, which means heat transfer crisis
in practice. The heat flux simulated in the study decreases with a range of 38.2%, 50.3% and 50.0% for the three cases which presents the
occurrence of heat transfer crisis. The model here can be further improved by taking the process of removal/shedding into consideration.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 51825605) and National Basic Research Program of
China (51476137).

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