Comparisons of two commercial computational fluid dynamics codes in modelling pulverised coal combustion for a 2.5 MW burner

Abstract

This paper reports an investigation into the performance of two commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes for pulverised coal combustion prediction. The two codes employed were FLUENT and FLOW3D 3.2 (now called CFX). The experimental case considered was a 2.5 MW Aerodynamically Air Staged Burner (AASB) fired in isolation into a rectangular furnace. Predictions were compared to velocity, temperature and species concentration experimental data. Some slight differences were noted between the two CFD codes predictions beyond one burner diameter downstream of the burner exit. Discrepancies between the predictions of the two CFD codes were concluded to be due to differences in the physical models used to describe devolatilisation and gaseous combustion. This paper therefore concludes that, for this case, the two commercial CFD codes were capable of predicting good 'trend' answers.