Energy 155 (2018) 474e483

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Energy
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Prevention of boiler performance degradation under large primary air

ratio scenario in a 660 MW brown coal boiler
Zixiang Li a, *, Zhengqing Miao a, Xusheng Shen a, Jiangtao Li b
a
Institute of Thermal Energy Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, PR China
b
Shanghai Boiler Works Ltd, Shanghai, 200240, PR China

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

Article history: To study how to prevent the boiler performance degradation under large primary air ratio (PAR) con-
Received 11 January 2018 dition, a three dimensional computational fluid dynamics model was established on the basis of a
Received in revised form 660 MW wall-fired brown coal boiler. Accuracy of simulation models was established by carrying out a
19 March 2018
mesh independence test and a comparison with real-life data. Then it was used to investigate the effects
Accepted 1 May 2018
Available online 2 May 2018
of proposed measures on boiler performance. The distribution profiles of combustion temperature, heat
flux, CO mass fraction and unburnt char particles were selected to analyze the boiler performance under
different cases. Results show that boiler performance deteriorates evidently when PAR is increased to
Keywords:
Brown coal
0.425, and the overall heat flux decreases by 37.0 MW. The three proposed measures can indeed improve
Primary air ratio the boiler performance that has been deteriorated when PAR is increased, and the overall heat flux was
Momentum difference increased by 6.42 MW, 6.59 MW and 15.53 MW respectively. Among the proposed measures, the method
Performance improvement of closing part of secondary air nozzles is recommended in regular boiler operation, due to its operability
Numerical simulation and convenience. The findings of this research and recommended measures can be used as guidelines in
the actual operation in brown coal power plant.
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction spontaneous combustion in storage and transportation [10]. Tian

As a type of primary energy source, brown coal is abundantly
deposited and distributed worldwide [1]. It is reported that the
worldwide reservation of brown coal exceeds 1025 billion tons,
which can be used to the year of 2100 at the current consumption
rate [2]. Compared with hard coal, brown coal has many advantages
like high reactivity, high amount of volatiles, low operation cost and
low pollution forming impurities [3]. However, as a typical low-
rank coal, its features of high moisture content, high ash content
and low heating value significantly impact its widespread use in
power generation industry [4]. For example, the reserve of brown
coal accounts for more than 13% of the national coal storage in
China [5], but the total capacity of large-scale brown coal boiler is
less than 3% of the national installed capacity [6].
Among the disadvantages, high moisture content, which varies
from 30% to as high as 66% [7], is considered to be the most unfa-
vorable factor that brings about problems like low plant efficiency
[8], high transporting costs [9] and increasing tendency of
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lizixiang617@sjtu.edu.cn (Z X. Li).
et al. [11] concluded two major reasons that cause the decrease of
power plant efficiency: (1) Large amount of high-grade heat was
wasted on the latent heat of water vapor emission; (2) Significant
amount of auxiliary power were required by mill and fan system,
because of the high mass flow rate of coal and flue gas. Further-
more, CO2 emission was reported to be higher in brown coal boiler,
since it consumes more standard coal to generate the same amount
of electricity as black coal boiler [12,13]. For instance, CO2 emission
of a brown-coal-fired power plant in Latrobe Valley was 1.42 tons
per MWh [14], while a typical Australian black-coal-fired power
plant was only about 0.9 tons per MWh [15].
In recent years, to improve the usability and combustion per-
formance of high moisture brown coal, more and more pre-drying
technologies were applied before its utilization. It was said that
with an optimal design of pre-drying process, the efficiency of
brown coal fired power plant can be increased by 4%e6% [16]. The
recent development of pre-drying technologies in coal pre-drying
process was reviewed in open literature [17,18]. Based on
whether the water inside the wet coal will be evaporated, pre-
drying technologies were divided into the evaporative drying
methods, such as rotary tube drying [19], fluidized bed drying [20]

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2018.05.008
0360-5442/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483
and microwave drying [21], and the non-evaporative drying
methods including hydrothermal dewatering [22], mechanical/
thermal dewatering [23] and solvent dewatering [24]. It was re-
ported that the availability and reliability of brown coal fired power
plant increases when the coal-drying process was applied [25]. On
average, an increase of 2%e4% in power plant efficiency can be
achieved when pre-dried coal was fired in utility boilers [26].
Through a numerical simulation analysis, Xu et al. [27] found the
power plant efficiency was improved by 2.6% when a novel pre-
drying system incorporating a supplementary steam circle was
integrated with a brown coal supercritical power plant. Liu et al.
[28] established a theoretical model and compared a pre-dried
brown coal fired power system with a conventional brown coal
fired power system, results showed that the increase of power plant
efficiency ranges from 1.38% to 1.90%, depending on the dryer
thermal efficiency. Besides, the moisture removal also results in a
substantial cost reduction in coal grinding and transportation
process [29], which increases the power plant efficiency indirectly.
However, for those power plants without pre-drying facilities,
raw brown coal with high moisture content is directly fed into the
mill system, where raw brown coal undergoes a simultaneous
pulverization and drying process [30]. In the coal mill, hot primary
air (PA) is used to evaporate the moisture content out of the raw
coal and to lift the dried pulverized coal particles (PCPs) into the
furnace [31]. When the moisture content exceeds a certain value,
the energy provided by hot PA cannot dry PCPs sufficiently, so that
the moisture content in PCPs increases and thus they become too
heavy to be lifted up into the furnace. Consequently, the wet coal
particles accumulate in the coal mill and then cause blocking
problem in the mill system [32]. In order to avoid blocking problem
and to maintain the drying capacity of mill system, the primary air
ratio (PAR) is usually forced to be increased in actual boiler oper-
ation. In this way, the total energy input carried by PA and the air
flow rate into the mill system can be increased. However, this
passive action destroys the original allocation of primary and sec-
ondary air flow and thus alters the aerodynamics condition inside
the boiler, which inevitably affects coal combustion behavior and
boiler performance. Long et al. [33] studied the effects of elevated
PAR on boiler performance in a 1000 MW dual-circle tangentially
fired boiler, and found the boiler performance deteriorated when
PAR was increased and deviated from the design value. In his study,
PAR was proposed to be kept at a reasonable design value, but
solutions were not given to prevent the boiler performance
degradation when PAR was unavoidably increased. However, for
those utility plants that burns high moisture content brown coal,
PAR was often inevitably increased to avoid blocking problem in
coal mill system. Under this condition, the coal combustion
behavior deteriorates and the boiler performance decreases
evidently. Since the boiler performance significantly affected the
economy of power plant operation, it was very necessary to find out
solutions to prevent boiler performance degradation when PAR was
increased. Therefore in this paper, attention was focused on how to
prevent the deterioration of boiler performance when PAR was
forced to be increased in actual boiler operation.
In this paper, the effects of three proposed measures were
investigated, to find out methods of preventing boiler performance
drop when brown coal boiler was operated under large primary air
ratio condition. To achieve this goal, a 3D computational fluid dy-
namics (CFD) model was established based on a 660 MW wall-fired
brown coal utility boiler, located in Inner Mongolia, China. After
model validation, it was used to study the coal combustion
behavior and boiler performance under 5 different operating con-
ditions. The design firing case with PAR at 0.325 and the unfavor-
able firing case with PAR at 0.425 were simulated as reference
cases. The rest three cases were cases with PAR at 0.425, where the
475
proposed measures were adopted to prevent the boiler perfor-
mance deterioration. Results show that boiler performance de-
teriorates evidently when PAR is increased to 0.425, and all these
three proposed measures can indeed prevent the boiler perfor-
mance degradation to some extent. In addition, the distributions of
combustion temperature and heat flux inside the furnace become
more reasonable when the proposed measures were taken. The
reason of why the boiler performance deteriorates in large primary
air ratio scenario and the mechanism of how the proposed mea-
sures improve the coal combustion behavior and boiler perfor-
mance was analyzed. In this paper, the boiler performance
deterioration is related to the momentum difference between pri-
mary air flow and secondary air flow, which can be used as a
guideline in the actual operation of brown coal boilers. When
adjusting the distribution of primary and secondary air flow, the
situation where the primary air flow momentum and secondary air
flow momentum are too close should be avoided. If the increase of
primary air ratio is inevitable, the measures proposed in this work
should be considered to prevent the performance drop of brown
coal boiler. Considering the widespread utilization of high moisture
brown coal in power plants, the proposed measures can be
economically beneficial, since the improvement of boiler perfor-
mance can reduce the coal consumption per MWh. Besides, the
reduction of coal consumption may cause a side benefit of emission
reduction.
2. Boiler geometry description and computational
methodology
2.1. Boiler configuration and operation conditions
The boiler configuration and simulation domain were created on
the basis of a 660 MW wall-fired brown coal utility boiler. As Fig. 1a
shows, the boiler height was 68.5 m and the horizontal cross-
section of the boiler is 20.0
20.3 m. The platen super-heater
(PSH) and rear super-heater (RSH) tubes were also taken into
consideration, with a heat absorbing area of 2228 m2 and 2856 m2,
respectively. In order to simplify the model, the four side furnace
walls (FW), PSH and RSH that constituted of heat transfer tubes
were simplified into plate panels with the same heat absorbing
surface area. Due to the negligible impact on the coal combustion
process inside the furnace, several rear convective heating surfaces
including re-heater, air-preheater and economizer were not
considered.
There were six sets of main burners (MBs) mounted on each
wall in MBs' region, which was divided into 3 groups. Nine sets of
SA nozzles were set up above and below each MB, to strengthen the
mixing process of supplementary SA and PCPs. Besides, four sets of
separated over fire air (SOFA) nozzles were situated above the MBs'
region. MBs and SA nozzles were installed at four walls, while SOFA
nozzles were tangentially mounted at four corners. Detailed
installation information of MBs, SA nozzles and SOFA nozzles was
graphically presented in Fig. 1b.
To produce 1913t/h superheated steam with high pressure of
25.4 MPa and high temperature of 571  C, 148.86 kg/s brown coal
was fed into the furnace at BMCR load. In order to fully consume
these fuel, 605.15Nm3/s fresh air was needed to supply into the
furnace. During the simulation process, the fuel composition and
coal properties were identical with those used in power plant
boiler. The physicochemical properties, i.e. proximate and ultimate
analysis of brown coal were given in Table 1.
2.2. Boundary conditions and simulation scenarios
As we all know, the governing equations and boundary or initial
476
(a) Geometric configuration of boiler
Fig. 1. Schematic of the furnace and the arrangements of the burners and air nozzles.
Table 1
Physical properties of brown coal used in simulation works.
Proximate analysis (wt%, ar)
Fixed carbon Volatile Ash Moisture
24.77 20.37 16.86 38.00
ar, on a received basis, daf, on a dry ash-free basis, LHV represents the lower heating value.
conditions form a complete description of a specific phenomenon.
Since the simulation process carried out in this study is steady-
state, boundary conditions are of great importance to the final re-
sults. Three types of boundary conditions are employed in this
paper, namely the velocity-inlet, the pressure-outlet and the wall
condition. The velocity-inlet boundary condition specifies the in-
formation of air supply, which is fed into the furnace through MBs,
SA nozzles and SOFA nozzles. A pressure-outlet boundary condition
is applied at the simulation domain exit, where a slight negative
pressure of 200pa is given and the backflow temperature is 1200 K.
It is noteworthy that the discrete phase boundary condition type at
the furnace exit is set to be “escape”, meaning that coal particle
leaves the furnace when it reaches the outlet. For the wall boundary
condition, the setting of temperature value is very important
because it directly affects the absorption of heat released from coal
combustion. In order to simplify the simulation process, the tem-
perature of each individual wall part is assumed to be a constant,
which can be determined by the temperature of working medium
inside these heat absorbing tubes. According to the experience of
Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483
(b) Detailed installation information of burners and air nozzles
Ultimate analysis (wt%, daf) LHVar (KJ/kg)
C H O N S
75.17 5.45 16.64 0.95 1.79 12120
boiler operation, the wall temperature of heat absorbing tubes can
be assumed as 50 K higher than the working medium temperature
inside the tubes. For FW, the working medium inside the mem-
brane tubes is steam-water mixture, and the outlet temperature of
steam-water separator is 427  C, so that the FW temperature is set
as 750 K. For PSH and RSH, the heat absorbing medium is super-
heated steam, therefore the medium temperature is assumed as the
average of inlet and outlet temperature. Thus, the wall temperature
of PSH and RSH is set to be 850 K, 893 K respectively. The emissivity
of all walls is set to be 0.8.
To investigate the effects of proposed measures on boiler per-
formance, 5 combustion scenarios were simulated in this paper.
Case 1 is the design firing case with PAR at 0.325, and case 2 is the
unfavorable firing case with PAR at 0.425. In the latter three cases,
boiler was operated with PAR at 0.425, but different measures were
applied. In case 3, the cross-section area of MBs is enlarged while the
cross-section area of SA nozzles is reduced. In case 4, three sets of SA
nozzles on each wall are closed, i.e. SA13, SA23 and SA33 depicted in
Fig. 1a. In case 5, the measures taken in case 3 and case 4 are
 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483
combined. That is to say, the cross-section area of MBs and SA
nozzles is kept the same as those in case 3, and nozzles SA13, SA23
and SA33 on each wall are closed at the same time. In accordance
with the actual boiler operation condition, the excess air coefficient
is set to be 1.18 and the SOFA rate is fixed to 20% for all 5 cases. At the
outlet of coal mill system, the temperature of primary air/pulverized
coal particles mixture is 338 K, so that the temperature of PA and
PCPs injection is set to be 338 K. The temperature of SA and SOFA is
set as 671 K, as they both come from the outlet of the secondary air
preheater. Detailed information of each case is presented in Table 2.
2.3. Simulation methodology and model selection
The simulation work was conducted with ANSYS FLUENT,
version 15.0. On the basis of past experience, appropriate sub-
models were selected and all of them were already validated in
open literature. A SIMPLE algorithm was used to couple the calcu-
lation between velocity and pressure [34]. For turbulence calcula-
tion, a standard k-ε model was selected due to its good performance
and stability [35]. To model the irregularity of particles movement,
discrete random walk model was used [36]. The size distribution of
coal particles was modeled with Rosin-Rammler function, which
had been validated for powder size prediction previously [37]. P-1
radiation model was used to describe the radiation heat transfer in
the furnace [30], and the absorption coefficient of gas phase was
modeled with domain based weighted-sum-of-gray-gases (WSGG)
model [38]. The combustion of volatile species and char component
was described by the probability density function theory [39] and
the diffusion/kinetics limited model [40], respectively.
In this study, moisture content in brown coal was specially
considered because of its great influence on coal combustion and
heat transfer process. The mass fraction of each volatile species and
the liquid water was specified when defining coal inlet boundary
condition. The composition and content of volatile were calculated
based on the research of Bradley et al. [41], in which the devolati-
lization process was divided into two separate steps. When coal
particles were heated up, the moisture evaporated at first and then
primary volatiles was released, leaving char component in coal
particles. After that, the tar species in primary volatiles continued
to evolve into soot and secondary volatiles. The mass fraction of
each volatile species were calculated and presented in Table 3.
During the simulation process, the gas phase flow field equa-
tions were solved at first without considering the existence of
discrete phase coal particles, which converged after less than 2000
iterations. Thereafter, the flow behavior and combustion process of
discrete coal particles were simulated on the basis of cold-state
flow field calculations. The simulation process was reckoned to be
converged when the absolute residuals of several important pa-
rameters were below 105, which took nearly 20000 iterations.
2.4. Mesh independence test and CFD model validation
As can be expected, a successive refinement of mesh system
Table 2
Detailed information of velocity inlet boundary condition.
Case 1 2 3 4
PAR 0.325 0.425 0.425 0.425
vPA (m/s) 25.9 33.8 27.9 33.8
vSA (m/s) 50.8 40.1 45.8 54.8
PAFM (kg.m/s) 6586.3 11239.9 9227.9 11239.9
SAFM (kg.m/s) 18880.6 11766.2 13438.6 16079.4
PAR is the primary air ratio, vPA is primary air velocity, vSA is secondary air velocity,
PAFM is the momentum of primary air flow, and SAFM is the momentum of sec-
ondary air flow.
477
takes us asymptotically towards the exact solution [42], meanwhile
the cost of computation increases extremely fast. In order to gain
sufficiently accurate simulation results at an affordable computing
cost, a number of trial simulation cases had been carried out, to
check the mesh independence before the formal calculations. Four
mesh systems are used in the mesh independence test, i.e. #1
(3.27 M), #2 (3.92 M), #3 (4.53 M) and #4 (5.09 M), which contains
3.27 million, 3.92 million, 4.53 million and 5.09 million hexahedral
cells respectively. Since the coal combustion process is very
intensive in MBs' region [43], the mesh system in this region is
denser and the mesh refinement is mainly performed here. As was
reported by Al-Abbas et al. [37], the velocity distribution had a great
impact on the mixing behavior and combustion performance of
coal particles, thus it is used as a criterion of mesh quality. Fig. 2
illustrates the fluid phase area-weighted average velocity magni-
tude of the horizontal cross sections along the furnace height. We
can find that the velocity difference under each system is not
obvious, except for the main combustion region. This is because the
coal combustion process occurs mainly in the main combustion
region, and the mesh refinement was mainly performed here. As
marked by the dotted line frame in the main combustion region, we
can see from the partial enlarged drawings that mesh system #3
and #4 yields very similar results when compared with mesh
system #1 and #2, which means the #3 mesh system can provide
sufficiently accurate simulation results. Therefore, #3 mesh system
is selected to continue the following simulation work. It is neces-
sary to clarify that the hexahedral cells number varies from 4.45
million to 4.69 million in different cases, due to the small change of
the simulation domain.
Model accuracy was validated by comparing simulation results
at the virtual furnace exit with reference data provided by Shangdu
power plant. As listed in Table 4, we can find that simulation results
agree well with reference data (difference within 5%), and thus the
models accuracy was validated. Based on the above mesh inde-
pendence test and model validation, confidence in the current
simulation model can be established.
3. Results and discussion
In the presenting paper, 5 simulation cases were carried out to
study the effects of proposed measures on the improvement of
boiler performance. In the following parts, the distribution of
combustion temperature, heat flux, CO mass fraction and particles
concentration are used to analyze the boiler performance under
different cases.
3.1. Combustion temperature distribution
3.1.1. Combustion temperature distribution description
Fig. 3 represents the temperature distribution contour on the
vertical cut (Z ¼ 0), and Fig. 4 shows the area-weighted average
temperature profile on horizontal cross-section along the furnace
height. As shown for all cases the temperature at the ash hopper
zone is in a very low level as coal particles were barely burnt here
[40]. In the main combustion region, where Y ranges from 0 to
25 m, the temperature is obviously higher than other regions, since
majority of coal particles were consumed in this region. In the re-
5
gion above SOFA, the average temperature decreases gradually
0.425 along the furnace height. This is reasonable because more heat was
27.9
absorbed by the working medium inside the heat absorbing tubes
62.8
9277.9 of FW, and less heat was released from coal combustion due to the
18426.8 small combustion fraction in this region [44]. It is noteworthy that
in Fig. 3, the temperature in the near wall region is much higher
than that in the central region. This can be explained as the coal
combustion occurs mainly on a tangential circle, which was formed
478 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483

Table 3
Component of volatile species of brown coal used and liquid water (wt. %, on an ash free base).

volatile species

H2O(l) CH4 HCN H2 CO CO2 H2O(g) C<s>

45.706 1.329 0.232 2.336 6.152 4.103 3.034 37.108

temperature level in the main combustion region significantly re-

Area-weighted average velocity (m/s)

#1 (3.27M)
24 duces the heat transfer intensity on FW, and the temperature in-
#2 (3.92M)
#3 (4.53M)
crease above SOFA region may cause an over-temperature of PSH
#4 (5.09M) and RSH tubes. Therefore, the temperature distribution pattern in
case 2 should be avoided in actual operation as much as possible. As
20 can be seen from the latter three cases, the temperature in the main
combustion region is increased when compared with case 2, which
means the coal combustion behavior was indeed improved when
proposed measures were applied. In case 3, the temperature shows
16 a very slight increase in the lower part of the furnace, but decreases
a little in the region above SOFA, indicating the coal combustion
behavior was slightly improved when the cross-section area of MBs
and SA nozzles was altered. In case 4 where three sets of SA nozzles
12 were closed, the combustion temperature increases evidently in
the main combustion region, which means the combustion
behavior become better and more particles were consumed in this
0 10 20 30 40 region. When these two measures were combined in case 5, we can
Distance from the reference plane (m) see that the temperature in the main combustion region continues
Fig. 2. Area-weighted average velocity profile along the furnace height under different to rise in a very small scale. What's more, the temperature showed a
mesh systems. clear decline above SOFA region, which is very desirable as it re-

Table 4
Comparison of CFD results and reference data.

velocity (m/s) temperature (K) O2 mass fraction H2O mass fraction CO2 mass fraction

CFD results 10.7 1212 0.049 0.090 0.189

Reference data 11.2 1237 0.047 0.093 0.187
Relative discrepancy 4.46% 2.02% 4.26% 3.23% 1.07%

case 1 case 2 case 3 case 4 case 5

Fig. 3. Temperature distribution contour on the vertical cut at Z ¼ 0.

under the combined effects of air flow extrusion, wall restriction,
jet entrainment and centrifugal force [45]. From Fig. 4, we can see
that the average temperature in the main combustion region fluc-
tuates along the furnace height, which is a result of the discon-
tinuous injection of low temperature PA, SA and SOFA.
From Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, we can find when PAR was increased to
0.425 in case 2, the combustion temperature decreases evidently in
the main combustion region and increases slightly above SOFA
region. As will be shown in section 3.2.1, the decrease of
duces the risk of over-temperature of PSH and RSH tubes. It can be
concluded when the boiler was operated in large PAR firing sce-
nario, these proposed measures can indeed improve the coal
combustion behavior. In addition, the temperature distribution
becomes more reasonable than it was when operated without any
measures applied, because the high temperature zone is more
concentrated in the main combustion region. The mechanism of
how the proposed measures improve the boiler performance will
be discussed later in detail.

Area-weighted average temperature (K)
1600
1500
1400
1300
main combustion region
0 10 20 30
Distance from the reference plane (m)
Fig. 4. Area-weighted average temperature distribution profile of horizontal cross-
section along the furnace height.
In order to quantitatively evaluate the temperature level in each
case, the data plotted in Fig. 4 are used to calculate the average
temperature in the main combustion region, where Y varies from
0 to 25 m. Then the temperature difference between each case is
obtained and listed in Table 5, where ATD1 represented the average
temperature difference between case 1 and other cases. As can be
found that the temperature difference between case 1 and case 2 is
the biggest, which means that the temperature in this region was
lowest when PAR was increased to 0.425 in case 2. For the latter
three cases, the temperature level in the main combustion region is
increased to some extent, depending on the specific measure
adopted. From Table 5, we can see that the temperature difference
in case 3 is reduced to 36.6 K, meaning the combustion behavior
was better in case 3. Furthermore, coal combustion behavior was
obviously improved in case 4, since the temperature difference is
further reduced to 12.61 K. For case 5 where the temperature dif-
ference is only 3.68 K, we can assume that the combustion perfor-
mance in the main combustion region was almost as good as that in
the design firing case 1. As the radiative intensity is proportional to
the fourth power of the temperature level, when proposed mea-
sures were applied, the re-increase of temperature in the main
combustion region will notably improve the heat transfer process
on FW, as will shown in section 3.2.1.
3.1.2. Analysis on why the applied measures work
From the above result description and discussion, we can find
that these proposed measures indeed work in the respect of
improving coal combustion performance. But how the measures
applied affect the coal combustion process and thus improve the
combustion temperature remains unknown. A reasonable expla-
nation for this phenomenon is given as following. In actual boiler
operation, the cross-section area of MBs and SA nozzles is un-
changeable. When PAR is enlarged, PA velocity increases
Table 5
Area-weighted temperature difference between cases in the main combustion
region.
Case number 1 2 3 4
ATD1 (K) / 47.91 36.60
ATD1 represent the average temperature difference between case 1 can other cases
in the main combustion region.
Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483 479
correspondingly. However, the secondary air ratio decreases and SA
case 1
velocity becomes smaller in the meantime. Under the combined
case 2 effects of air flow ratio and its velocity, PAFM and SAFM changes in
case 3 an opposite way when PAR is increased. Under each case, PAFM and
case 4 SAFM are listed in Table 2, which is calculated as the product of air
flow ratio and air velocity.
case 5 As we can see in case 1, SAFM is much bigger than PAFM. Under
this condition, the mixing process of supplementary SA and PCPs
carried by PA is in a good state [33], thus the coal particles can be
sufficiently burnt in the main combustion region. However, PAFM
and SAFM are roughly the same in case 2, leading to a deterioration
of mixing process and coal combustion behavior in the main
combustion region, therefore the combustion temperature de-
creases obviously. When proposed measures were taken in the
latter three cases, the difference between PAFM and SAFM is
enlarged again. Especially in case 5 where the cross-section area of
40 MBs and SA nozzles was altered and three sets of SA nozzles were
closed, SAFM is about two times as much as PAFM. Therefore, the
mixing process is re-enhanced and combustion behavior is
improved again, so that the increase of combustion temperature is
very evident. In conclusion, the relative magnitude of PAFM and
SAFM significantly affects the mixing process of PCPs and oxidizer,
and then affects coal combustion behavior and boiler performance.
A reasonably large difference between PAFM and SAFM is beneficial
to the coal combustion performance.
3.2. Heat flux distribution
3.2.1. Heat flux distribution on the furnace wall
The heat released from coal combustion process was absorbed
by the heating surfaces on FW, PSH and RSH, and then it was used
to heat up the water and turned it into steam with high tempera-
ture and high pressure. Thus the amount of heat absorbed by these
heating surfaces will evidently affect the overall power plant effi-
ciency. Fig. 5 represents the contour of heat flux spatial distribution
on FW, where the negative values indicate that the heat was
transferred from the high temperature flue gas to FW. From Fig. 5,
we can see that the maximum heat flux intensity appears in the
main combustion region, where Y varies from 0 to 25 m. This is due
to the combustion temperature in this region is obviously higher
than other regions, as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 6 illustrates the
isothermal surface of combustion temperature at 1700 K, which can
be used to represent the high temperature level inside the furnace.
We can see from Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 that the distribution of heat flux on
FW is highly consistent with the high temperature distribution.
This is due to the fact that the radiation intensity, which is pre-
dominant in the overall heat transfer process of pulverized coal
boiler [45], is in proportion to the fourth power of the combustion
temperature.
In case 2 where PAR was increased to 0.425, the maximum heat
transfer intensity is much lower than that in the design firing case 1.
As explained in Section 3.1.2, this is due to the combustion per-
formance deteriorates and thus the high temperature zone shrinks
significantly in case 2, which is shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 6. Taking
case 2 as a reference firing scenario, we can find that the heat flux
intensity in the latter three cases is increased to some extent, while
the increment degree depends on the specific measure applied in
each case. As shown in case 3, the heat flux intensity is slightly
increased as a result of the minor enlargement of the high tem-
perature zone (Fig. 6). In case 4, the size of high temperature zone is
evidently larger than that in case 2, so that an obvious increase of
5
heat flux intensity on FW can be found in Fig. 5. When these two
12.61 3.68 measures are applied synchronously in case 5, the high tempera-
ture zone is further enlarged and the maximum heat transfer in-
tensity is even bigger than that in the design firing case 1.
480 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483

case 1 case 2 case 3 case 4 case 5

Fig. 5. Contour of heat flux spatial distribution on the furnace wall.

Fig. 6. Isothermal surface of temperature at 1700 K under different firing conditions.

3.2.2. Radiative heat flux on all heating surfaces can see that most of the heat released from coal combustion is
To quantitatively investigate the variation of heat flux on heat- absorbed by FW, while the heat absorbed by PSH and RSH only
absorbing surfaces, Fig. 7 presents the variation of radiative heat accounts for a small portion. Therefore, the variation trend of
flux (RHF) on each individual heat absorbing surfaces group, where overall RHF denoted by “ALL”, is almost the same as that on FW. In
“ALL” refers to the summation of RHF on all heating surfaces. We case 1, for instance, the percentage of heat absorbed by FW, PSH and
RSH is 76.9%, 15.6% and 7.5% respectively.
As we can see from Fig. 7, the amount of RHF on FW decreases
FW 105 evidently in case 2 when PAR is increased to 0.425, and then it
PSH
615 increases again when proposed measures were adopted. On the
Radiative heat flux (MW)

ALL RSH contrary, radiative heat flux on PSH and RSH increases in case 2, but
Radiative heat flux (MW)

100
600 decreases in the latter three cases. A reasonable explanation is that
when PAR is increased, the coal combustion process deteriorates in
95 the main combustion region, more unburnt particles are then
585 consumed above SOFA region. Therefore, the combustion temper-
ature in the roof region increases, as shown in Fig. 3, and thus RHF
90
570 on the PSH and RSH increases correspondingly. This phenomenon
should be avoided as much as possible, since it may result in an
465 over-temperature on the heat absorbing tubes of PSH and RSH, and
48
a severe tube over-temperature will cause tube failure or even
450 forced shutdown of boiler units [46,47]. When proper measures
45 were taken in the latter three cases, the coal combustion behavior
435 becomes better in the main combustion region and less heat is
42 released above SOFA region, thus the radiative heat flux on PSH and
420 RSH decreases. As far as the total RHF on all heating surface is
case 1 case 2 case 4 case 5 concerned, we can see that it decreases sharply in case 2 and then
case 3
increases in the latter three cases. When compared with the
Fig. 7. Variation of radiative heat flux on different heating surfaces.
 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483
reference case 2, the total RHF is considerably increased by
6.43 MW, 6.59 MW and 15.53 MW respectively. Besides, the distri-
bution of RHF becomes more reasonable, as it increases in the main
combustion region and decreases in the roof region.
3.3. Carbon oxide and unburnt char particles
As is known to us all, when coal particles are sufficiently com-
busted, the reaction product would be mainly CO2. However, when
the combustion process of coal particles is insufficient, part of the
combustion products would be CO. Thus, the CO content is used as a
predictor of the combustion efficiency in the main combustion
region. The distribution contour of CO mass fraction on horizontal
cross-section with different heights (Y ¼ 1m, 14 m, 25 m, respec-
tively) is shown in Fig. 8. Due to the intensive combustion process
and the lack of oxygen, CO mass fraction is very high in the middle
of main combustion region, as shown by the cross-section of
Y ¼ 14 m. We can see that the CO mass fraction in case 2 is obvi-
ously higher than that in case 1, this is because the coal combustion
process deteriorates evidently when PAR is increased to 0.425.
Compared with case 2, a reduction in CO mass fraction can be found
in the latter three cases, especially in case 4 and case 5. This can be a
strong support for the assertion that the coal combustion behavior
and boiler performance are improved when the proposed measures
are adopted.
Fig. 9 depicts the distribution contour of the mass concentration
of unburnt char particles (UCPs) on a horizontal cross-section
above MBs' region (Y ¼ 18 m). Since volatiles matters are so flam-
mable that can be easily consumed up after the devolatilization
process [48,49], UCPs' concentration is used to present the utili-
zation efficiency of brown coal. We can find that UCPs are pre-
dominantly concentrated on a tangential circle, which was formed
inside the furnace. From Fig. 9, we can see that UCPs' concentration
is relatively low in case 1, because the coal combustion process in
the main combustion region is in a good state. When PAR is
increased in case 2, the mixing process become worse and coal
combustion behavior deteriorates, leaving more particles uncon-
sumed in the upper main combustion region. In the latter three
combustion cases, a decrease in UCPs' concentration can be easily
found when compared with the unfavorable firing case 2. This is
because when the proposed measures were applied, the mixing
process and combustion behavior in the main combustion region
becomes better again, therefore fewer particles is remained un-
burnt in the upper main combustion region.
From a comprehensive view of all the parameters discussed
above, we can find that the variation trends of combustion tem-
perature (Fig. 3), radiative heat flux (Fig. 5), CO mass fraction (Fig. 8)
case 1 case 2
Fig. 8. CO mass fraction distribution contour on horizontal cross-section with furnace height (Y ¼ 1m, 14 m, 25 m).
481
and UCPs' concentration (Fig. 9) match perfectly well to each other.
As depicted in Eq. (1), when the coal particles are sufficiently
consumed, the combustion products are mainly CO2, and more heat
is released from the combustion process. However, when PAR is
increased in case 2, the coal combustion performance deteriorates
in the main combustion region. Therefore, more particles remain
unburnt in the upper main combustion region and UCPs' concen-
tration increases. Besides, more particles are consumed in the form
depicted by Eq. (2), leading to an increase of CO mass fraction. As
denoted by Eq. (2), the reaction heat released from coal combustion
would be sharply decreased when CO was produced. Therefore, less
heat is released in the main combustion region when CO mass
fraction increases, resulting in a decrease of combustion tempera-
ture. Since the heat transfer intensity depends largely on the
combustion temperature, a decrease in the combustion tempera-
ture will inevitably lower the heat flux on heating surfaces. When
these proposed measures were applied, the mixing process was
enhanced and coal combustion behavior is improved again, so that
more particles are consumed in the form denoted by Eq. (1). In this
way, the CO mass fraction and UCPs' concentration can be reduced,
and the combustion temperature level and the heat flux can be
increased at the same time.
CðsÞ þ O2 ðgÞ/CO2 ðgÞ DH ¼ 393:5 kJ=mol (1)
CðsÞ þ 1 2O2 ðgÞ/COðgÞDH ¼ 110:5 kJ=mol
= (2)
4. Conclusions
To investigate how to prevent boiler performance degradation
in large PAR combustion scenario, a three dimensional CFD model
was established in this paper. The model accuracy was ensured by a
mesh independence test and a model validation. Then the validated
model was used to investigate 5 firing cases, including the design
case 1 with PAR at 0.325, the unfavorable case 2 with PAR at 0.425,
and three cases where proposed measures were applied to improve
the boiler performance when PAR was at 0.425. The distributions of
combustion temperature, heat flux, CO mass fraction and UCPs'
concentration were used to analyze the coal combustion process
and boiler performance under different firing cases. Some partic-
ular conclusions can be drawn from the above results description
and discussion:
1. The difference between PAFM and SAFM is considered as the
decisive factor that affects the brown coal boiler performance, as
case 3 case 4 case 5
482 Z X. Li et al. / Energy 155 (2018) 474e483

case 1 case 2 case 3 case 4 case 5

Fig. 9. Distribution of UCPs' concentration on a horizontal cut above the main burners' region (Y ¼ 18 m).

it affects the mixing process and combustion behavior of coal MB main burner
particles in the main combustion region. PA primary air
2. The coal combustion behavior and boiler performance deterio- PAFM primary air flow momentum
rate obviously when PAR is increased to 0.425, since PAFM is PAR primary air ratio
almost the same as SAFM. PCPs pulverized coal particles
3. A reasonable difference between PAFM and SAFM is recom- PSH platen super-heater
mended in the actual operation of brown coal boiler, and the RHF radiative heat flux
situation where PAFM and SAFM are too close should be avoided RSH rear super-heater
as much as possible. SA secondary air
4. When these proposed measures are applied under firing cases SAFM secondary air flow momentum
with large PAR, the boiler performance gets improved and the SOFA separated over fire air
distribution of combustion temperature and heat flux inside the UCPs unburnt char particles
furnace becomes more reasonable. vPA primary air velocity
vSA secondary air velocity
The findings of this work can provide guidance for the operation DH heat of reaction
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