Greco article

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3:17 pm

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CEMENT TECHNOLOGY

A matter
of scale
by Renato Greco, Technical Director, C Greco
Combustion plays a major role in cement production process mostly due to
its influence on clinker quality and its important contribution to the final
product cost. However, it is not possible to measure gas properties, temperature or velocity profiles inside a rotary kiln. That poses a very serious
problem: how to assess combustion and flame aerodynamics inside the
kiln? Basically there are two ways of doing it: physical modelling or mathematical modelling. C Greco understands that, in general, mathematical
modelling is more interesting than physical modelling.
hen referring to physical modelling, this consists of using
similar small-scale equipment
to evaluate process conditions
in huge equipment. Once the process is
optimised the equipment is scaled-up. It
can be done on a laboratory scale, pilot
scale or semi-industrial scale, depending
on the process complexity.
It can also faithfully represent the
equipment and the process, eg for a
cement rotary kiln, it should have a burner
with primary air, an oil gun or solid fuel
injection, clinker cooler, hot secondary air
etc. Or in a simpler way a simplified system is conceived, in which some of the
parameters are replaced by others, for
instance, fuel and air are replaced by two
reacting liquid streams.
The first approach is far more complex
and costly, and in some cases even impossible to be applied in small scale, but it is
more realistic. For instance, flame shape
and behaviour depend on mixing, chemical
kinetics, momentum, heat and mass transfer, buoyancy effects, radiation etc, thus it
is quite a problem to represent the phenomena using two reacting liquid streams.
Scaling-up problems are well known in
industry, because some of the phenomena
that take place in the process may not be
noticed or its magnitude is irrelevant in
small-scale. This brings to mind the very
beginning of the space race, when a com-

40

mon scale-up problem troubled Americans

and Soviets for years.
After the end of World War II, the
Soviets and the Americans, based on the
old German V-2 rocket, started to develop
an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
(ICBM) or Intermediate Range Ballistic
Missile (IRBM). Both nations were assisted
by German technicians and scientists.
WernerVon Braun, the father of V-2 rocket,
was the leader of the rocketry team for the
American programme.
However, the Americans and Soviets
had a very serious problem while developing the engines to the ICBM: combustion
chamber instability due to large eddies.
Soviets had problems with the scale-up
from the 31.8t thrust engines to 66t. It
was early 1950s and the Soviets had set
1956 for the first ICBM launch.
Successive failures made Valentin
Glauchko, the head of soviet propulsion
team, abandon for a while the idea of
designing a big combustion chamber for
the ICBM. Glauchko's solution was the RD107/108 propulsion sets, a cluster of four
motors sharing common fuel pumps and
developing a total vacuum thrust of 90100t. This put each chamber in the range
in which the existing experience base
could assure stable combustion (about
25t).
This way, the Soviet R7-8K71 launch
vehicle, shown in Figure 1, was developed,

INTERNATIONAL CEMENT REVIEW / DECEMBER 2002

Figure 1: the R7-8K71 Launcher - rear view1

using four RD-107 propulsion sets for the

first stage and oe RD-108 propulsion set
for the second stage. It was launched on 4
October 1957 carrying the first artificial
satellite: Sputnik I.
It marked the start of the US-USSR
space race. By the way NASA was founded
in 1958. The combustion instability problem was further studied and solved.
This is an example on how the development of an engine just 2.1 times more
powerful (from 31.8t to 66t thrust) can be
much more complex than it seems, even
tough it is carried out by the most capable
scientists / technicians in the world.

Mathematical modelling
It consists of modelling phenomena by
means of mathematical equations. These
are partial differential equations and can
be presented in the general form shown
below:

Where:

= dependent variable
= mixture density or zero (for radiation)
= appropriate exchange coefficient for
the variable (zero for continuity; laminar
viscosity for momentum etc)

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CEMENT TECHNOLOGY

Equation
Continuity
Momentum
Turbulence

No of Equations
1
3
2

Fuel mass fraction

Stagnation enthalpy
Composite mass fraction

1
1
1

Radiation flux

Remarks
For three-dimensional problems
If two-equation model is used such as k-,
but it could be none, one or two.

Assuming that combustion reaction is a

simple chemical one, ie with a single-step
reaction of a pair of reactants: fuel and
oxidant
For three-dimensional problems

Table 1: the 12 equations for a simplified three-dimensional combustion model

It has found out a lot of interesting

phenomena related to combustion in
cement kilns. Some of them are presented
below:
Kiln hood influence on flame shape: in
1995 one cement plant reported to C.Greco
that it started to have excessive wear of
bricks (in the rotary kiln) after changing
the geometry of the cooler-to-kiln transition section. C Greco had not supplied the
burner nor the burner design, it was just
acting as a consultant.
Thus C Greco developed a mathematical
modelling and found out that the velocity
profile of the secondary air was distorting
the flame. Figure 2 shows one of the
results of this modelling: the velocity vector distribution in the burner tip neighbourhood.

Now the problem is to define when to

S = sources of and other terms which
stop the mathematical modelling, when the
cannot be placed in the left-hand side of
set of differential equations is converged,
the equation.
at what time residual errors are small
For a simplified three-dimensional
enough to consider a problem solved.
combustion model there is a set of about
Double cooking
One of the great advantages of the
12 equations. See Table 1.
Combustion mechanisms change along the
mathematical modelling is that it calcuNonetheless one can assume that comkiln. It causes the appearance of two temlates the properties of the gas/solid stream
bustion takes place in steps and there are
perature peaks that can lead to the forma(velocities, pressure, temperature, fuel
intermediate composites. In this case the
tion of combustion rings.
concentration, oxidant concentration etc)
number of equations is raised.
Through mathematical modelling C
for every small volume in the domain.
Now the problem is to numerically
Greco was able to calculate and indicate
Moreover, it can be used to simulate a
solve this set of equations. It can be
the location of the temperature peaks
great variety of process and phenomena
solved through finite element, finite difinside the kiln, furthermore it allowed
other than combustion in rotary kilns. The
ference or finite volume methods. We do
C Greco to develop burners with high flexisame software can model reacting or nonnot intend to discuss the pros and cons of
bility that can improve ring formation
reacting flows, one-phase or multi-phase
each method, but most of the software
control.
flows and the most diverse geometries.
packages designed to solve fluid dynamics
C
Greco
started
using
CFD
problems coupled to heat transfer use the
Flame aerodynamics
(Computational Fluid Dynamics) in 1979,
finite volume method.
Flame shape is deeply related to the pribased on his own software and models.
First of all the domain has to be
mary air components: mass flows, injection
Nowadays C Greco uses one of the most
divided into smaller volumes, maybe thouvelocities, nozzles/slots distribution etc. C
powerful and complete CFD package availsands of tiny volumes. Once the domain is
Greco studied by means of mathematical
able in the market. It has deployed mathedivided and the boundary conditions are
modelling the aerodynamics near the
matical modelling as a tool to develop
set, the problem remains to choose the
burner tip aiming to enhance flame shape
technology and to solve problems related
mathematical models that fit better to
control. Figure 3 shows one of the modto combustion and fluid dynamics.
your problem and to numerically integrate
elled parameters. The results led to the
the equations for all those
optimisation of the burner
small volumes.
tip geometry.
Figure 2: mathematical modelling of velocity distribution near the burner tip
For instance, which turbulence model should one
Calciner combustion and
use to solve a given probraw meal distribution
lem: a Prandtl mixing-length
The raw meal distribution
model, a k- model or a
in the calciner is another
important
factor.
Reynolds Stress Model?
Depending on how it is
Choosing the most suitable
injected in the calciner
model may not only lead to
the calciner efficiency
better results, but also to
may be impaired. By
lesser computational time.
means of mathematical
The solution of such a
modelling it is possible to
system of partial differential
evaluate, for instance, the
equations may take some
temperature distribution
weeks or even months, with
in a calciner - shown in
powerful computers running
Figure 4.
24-hours a day.

INTERNATIONAL CEMENT REVIEW / DECEMBER 2002

41

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CEMENT TECHNOLOGY

Figure 4:
mathematical
modelling of
gaseous phase
temperature
in calciner

Figure 3: mathematical modelling of temperature in burning zone

Conclusion
No doubt that laboratory research is very
important to equipment and technology
development, however the simple scale-up
may become a hard duty due to high costs
or just because unnoticeable phenomena in
small-scale process may become really
troublesome in big scale.
C Greco understands that the best way
to study a thermo-fluid-chemical problem
is through mathematical modelling, unless

there are mathematical obstacles that

could not be overcome. Otherwise a representative model may be employed to
develop physical modelling. Depending on
the process the representative model can
be much bigger than it appeared at first
sight.
It does not mean that mathematical
modelling is an easy-to-use tool or that
complex phenomena such as combustion in
a rotary kiln can be easily modelled. It

requires very hard work and sound theoretical and practical knowledge on the matter.
While carrying out either physical or
mathematical modelling assumptions must
be made. Nonetheless some assumptions
are stronger than others. ___________
1Picture

courtesy of Mark Wade

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