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2011 Power
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POWER2011
POWER2011
July
July12-14,
12-14,2011,
2011, Denver,
Denver, Colorado,
Colorado, USA
USA
POWER2011-55110
POWER2011-55110
CFD SIMULATION OF POLLUTANT EMISSION IN POWER PLANT BOILERS
Ivn F. Galindo-Garca, Ana K. Vzquez-Barragn, Alejandro G. Man-Gonzlez, and
Miguel Rossano-Romn
Electrical Research Institute of Mxico (IIE),
Reforma 113, Cuernavaca, Mxico, 62490
ABSTRACT
A computational model is developed in order to investigate
pollutant emissions from power plant boilers to the
atmosphere. A well-known method of pollutant reduction is the
modification of the combustion conditions to prevent their
formation, and 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes
provide an effective tool for the analysis of the combustion
process. In this paper CFD calculations were performed to
analyze the effect of the amount of combustion air on the
production and emission of nitrogen oxides, one of the main
pollutants produced during the combustion process. For this
analysis the appropriate modeling of the chemical and physical
phenomena involved is important, because the production and
transport of pollutant species strongly depend on the flow and
temperature distributions in the furnace. Two case studies are
presented: a pulverized coal-firing tangential boiler and a fueloil frontal boiler. The CFD calculations adopt a 3Dformulation of the mean flow equations in combination with
the standard high-Reynolds-number k- turbulence model. The
model domain consists of the whole boiler, from the burner
nozzles up to the exit of the economizer. Due to their complex
geometrical features and computational limitations bank tubes
are not modeled individually, but are grouped in a total
volume. A porous media region approach is then undertaken to
model gas flow and heat transfer in each heat exchanger.
Model validation is a difficult task due to the lack of available
data from commercial utilities. Validation has been done using
routinely measured global parameters. Relatively good
agreement is obtained. Results show that increasing the
amount of air reduce nitrogen oxides formation for the case of
the tangential boiler, however for the frontal boiler case this
behavior is not as evident. These results demonstrate that CFD
simulations are a viable tool to study the effect some
combustion parameters have on the production of pollutants.
CFD results may help to establish trends that, in turn, may help
to reduce pollutant emissions from power plant boilers.
1. INTRODUCTION
One of the main challenges facing the power generation
industry that use fossil fuels is to meet the increased electricity
demand while maintaining the emission of pollutants
according to environmental regulations. Some of the air
pollutants formed in high temperature combustion processes
where the nitrogen present in the fuel or air combines with
oxygen are nitrogen oxides (nitric oxide NO, nitrogen dioxide
NO2 and nitrous oxide N2O, grouped as NOx), which, along
with sulfur oxides (SO2 and SO3) and particulate matter,
contribute to the formation of acid rain and ozone degradation,
with the potential to affect visibility and in general deteriorate
human health [1]. In consequence, in order to diminish their
effect most combustion systems are regulated, monitored and
required to have some type of control. This control is closely
related to the combustion process. In utility boilers, the socalled primary techniques for reduction of nitrogen oxides
consist in the modification of combustion conditions to avoid
their formation. Depending on the fuel, and also on the design
of furnace and combustion system, diverse technologies are
available: low NOx burners, fuel/air staging, overfire air,
reburning, and flue gas recirculation. In many instances these
primary techniques are not enough to meet the new, very
stringent regulations, so that secondary techniques, i.e. NOx
selective chemical reduction, are unavoidable.
Useful tools to help in the control of the emission of
contaminants, with either primary or secondary techniques, are
simulation tools such as the Computational Fluids Dynamics
(CFD) codes. The method involves the use of mathematical
and numerical models to solve fluid flow, mass and heat
transfer, chemical reactions and phase change. CFD
simulations help to analyze the combustion process through a
virtual prototype that provides qualitative and quantitative
results.
In this work simulations have been performed in order to
demonstrate that CFD simulations are a viable tool to study the
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2011
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Do2
4ST SL
(1)
SH3
RH2
RH3
SH4
SH1
ECO SUP
ECOINF
Hanger tub SH1
Panel
s
26
40
80
80
54
27
27
54
Tubes
33
20
8
8
34
12
12
5
Diam.
mm
48.6
63.5
60.3
48.6
54
45
45
48.6
ST, mm
522
348
174
174
130.5
130.5
130.5
130.5
SL,
mm
58.1
115
115
100
100
115
115
100
Porosity
0.938
0.920
0.857
0.893
0.824
0.894
0.894
0.857
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Heat exchanger
Boiler Walls (%)
Superheaters (%)
Reheaters (%)
Economizer (%)
Air Pre-heater (%)(not modeled)
Total absorbed heat (%)
Coal
34
33
14
9
10
100
Heavy Oil
36
31
14
10
9
100
k = A1 e (E RT )
(2)
4. CASE-STUDY BOILER
The boiler under consideration is part of a 350 MW
commercial power plant operating in a subcritical steam cycle.
The combustion chamber is rectangular in shape (dimensions
12.7 x 14.15 x 45.6 m), and is fired tangentially using either
five pulverized coal burners or four heavy oil fuel burners in
each corner. The burner nozzles discharge a mixture of coal
and air into the furnace, while auxiliary nozzles discharge
secondary air. For the case of the boiler firing pulverized coal
it has two types of coal burners, one is a fuel rich burner
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Parameter
Case 1: Coal firing
Load
Elevations in service
Coal flow rate
Primary air flow rate
Primary air temperature
Total secondary air flow rate
Secondary air temperature
OFA flow rate
Outlet pressure relative to
atmospheric pressure
Case 2: Heavy oil firing
Load
Elevations in service
Heavy oil flow rate
Heavy oil temperature
Air flow rate
Air temperature
Gas recirculation flow rate
OFA flow rate
Outlet pressure relative to
atmospheric pressure
Coal Properties
Proximate analysis (as received)
Moisture (%)
Ash (%)
Volatile (%)
Fixed carbon (%)
Ultimate analysis (as received)
Carbon (%)
Hydrogen (%)
Oxygen (%)
Nitrogen (%)
Sulfur (%)
Chloride (%)
Heating value (kJ/kg)
Heavy oil Properties
Proximate analysis (as received)
Carbon (%)
Hydrogen (%)
Sulfur (%)
Oxygen + Nitrogen (%)
Heating value (kJ/kg)
values
9.5
12.2
31
47.3
82.5
5.6
8.96
1.8
1.1
0.04
26,497.27
values
83.64
11.3
4.2
0.86
41,868
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5. MODEL VALIDATION
The data needed for model validation is usually not
available in commercial utilities. As stated in [6], it is
impractical and unlikely that enough experimental data could
be collected to provide the detailed information needed for
combustion modeling. Therefore the global parameters
measured routinely by plant operators may be taken as a guide
for model validation. In this context validation refers more to
agreement in trends than comparison of absolute values.
5.1. Validation results firing coal
The boiler was operated with the lower ABCD levels
firing coal and the upper E level out of service. The tilt angles
of the AE burner levels were assumed to be 0. The
combustion simulations are compared to some key global
design parameters available from boiler data, including the
average temperature and average O2 and CO2 mass fraction at
the furnace exit. Table 5 presents data from calculations and
from the reference boiler. It should be noted that the exact
location for measurements inside the boiler was not known.
Therefore calculated values in Table 5 are given as a range
limited by the maximum and minimum values in a transversal
plane at the indicated location, where the minimum and
maximum temperature values are greatly influenced by the
cold temperature at the walls (377 C) and by the hot gases at
the center of the furnace, hence the wide range of values in
Table 5. These results show that, except for flue gas
temperature at furnace exit and O2 concentration at
economizer exit, which are higher and lower than plant data,
respectively, the ranges of calculated values enclose the
respective reference value. Discrepancies are difficult to
analyze because of the uncertainties about the exact location of
the measurement point. Despite these differences the general
trend in flue gas temperature as the gas flows through the
furnace is similar for calculation and plant data. Recall,
however, that this comparison is only a rough approximation
towards model validation and that more plant data is needed
for better analysis.
Variable
Flow rate
Flue gas (economizer outlet) kg/s
Temperature
Flue gas at furnace exit, C
Reheater outlet, C
Superheater outlet, C
Flue gas at economizer inlet, C
Flue gas economizer outlet, C
Flue gas concentration
O2 economizer exit (dry vol %)
CO2 economizer exit (dry vol %)
Calculation
Plant data
372.2
376.66
1433 1711
511 1235
584 907
487 907
252 610
1007
779
527
524
343
0.73 2.58
15.5 18.1
3.6
15.217.7
Variable
Flow rate
Flue gas at economizer outlet, kg/s
Temperature
Flue gas at furnace exit, C
Reheater outlet, C
Superheater outlet, C
Flue gas at economizer inlet, C
Flue gas economizer outlet, C
Flue gas concentration
O2 economizer exit (dry vol %)
CO2 economizer exit(dry vol %)
Calculation
Plant data
358.20
357.5
8191484
445 1081
336 680
336 668
171 400
1017
773
517
546
352
0.08 0.9
12.7 13.39
1.1
13.59
6. MODEL RESULTS
CFD simulations have been performed in order to analyze
the effect of changing the boiler operating conditions on the
combustion process and in particular on pollutant emissions.
Here the effect of varying the amount of combustion air is
investigated. It is assumed that variation of the combustion air
can have a significant influence on the NOx formation process.
Two cases are presented: a case with a tangentially fired boiler
burning coal and a case of a frontal burner boiler using fuel
oil. For both cases results were obtained for 100% load and
increasing the combustion air by 10%.
6.1 Tangentially fired Boiler
Figure 4 shows a plot of the average temperature in
horizontal cross-sections at different distances in the path of
the gas. It shows the influence of the amount of air supplied
for the combustion process on average temperature.
Temperature is lower when combustion air was increased.
Figure 5 shows temperature contours in a horizontal crosssection at the height of the elevation D burner (10 m) for the
two cases. Even if the profiles are very similar, it appears that
the temperature for the base case is higher.
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Base case
Base case
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Base case
6. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Computations of a utility boiler have been undertaken using
a CFD-based model that solves the 3D-equations for massdiffusion, momentum, and energy in combination with models
for turbulence (standard high-Reynolds-number k- model),
combustion (eddy dissipation model) and radiation (P1
model). The aim was to demonstrate that CFD simulations are
a viable tool to study the effect that combustion parameters
have on the production of pollutants. CFD results may help to
establish trends that, in turn, may help to reduce pollutant
emissions from power plant boilers. The CFD calculations
presented here investigate the effect that changing the
operating conditions of a boiler would have on NOx formation.
The model has been validated comparing simulation results to
design parameters from the reference plant, where validation
refers more to agreement in trends than comparison of absolute
values Two case studies have been presented in which
numerical simulations were conducted varying the amount of
oxygen available for combustion, which changes the
conditions for the production of NOx. Results show that NO
production is reduced when the amount of available air for
combustion is increased by 10%. This result is justified
because temperature decreases by increasing air flow.
However, in the case of the frontal boiler firing fuel oil this
trend was not observed as clearly, so further simulations are
required varying this parameter further. As a final conclusion
CFD is recommended as a viable computational tool to
evaluate techniques aimed at reducing emissions in boilers,
bearing in mind that validation is a key part in the simulation
process.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Financial support for this work was provided by CFE (the
Mexican utility, Laboratorio de Pruebas a Equipos y
Materiales, LAPEM), CONACYT (National Council for
Science and Technology of Mxico) and IIE (Electrical
Research Institute of Mxico).
NOMENCLATURE
Roman letters
A1
pre-exponential factor (kgmol/m3-s)
Do
tube diameter (m)
E
activation energy (J/kgmol)
R
universal gas constant (J/kgmol-K)
ST
transversal length (m)
SL
axial length (m)
T
temperature (K)
k
kinetic reaction rate (kg/m3-s)
Greek letters
porosity factor
REFERENCES
[1] Babcock and Wilcox, 2005, Steam/its generation and use,
41 ed, eds. J.B. Kitto and S.C.Strultz, The Babcock and
Wilcox Company, Ohio, USA.
[2] L. I. Dz, C. Corts, and J. Pallars, 2008, Numerical
Investigation of NOx Emissions From a Tangentially-Fired
Utility Boiler Under Conventional and Overfire Air
Operation, Fuel, 87, pp 1259-1269.
[3] ANSYS, 2009. ANSYS FLUENT 12.0 Theory Guide,
ANSYS, April 2009.
[4] ANSYS, 2009. ANSYS FLUENT 12.0 Users Guide,
ANSYS, April 2009.
[5] Launder BE, Spalding DB., 1974, The Numerical
Computation of Turbulent Flows, Comput Meth Appl Mech
Eng, 3, pp. 269289.
[6] Fiveland, W.A., Wessel RA, 1988, Numerical Model for
Predicting Performance of Three Dimensional Pulverize-Fuel
Fired Furnaces. J Eng Gas Turb Power, 110, pp.117126.
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