Ravi Inder Singh

CFD Analysis of Bubbling Fluidized Bed Using Rice Husk

Rice is Cultivated in all the main regions of world. The worldwide annual rice production could be 666million tons (www.monstersandcritics.com,2008) for year 2008. The annual production of rice husk is 133.2 million tons considering rice husk being 20% of total paddy production. The average annual energy potential is 1.998 *1012 MJ of rice husk considering 15MJ/kg of rice husk. India has vast resource of rice husk; a renewable source of fuel, which if used effectively would reduce the rate of depletion of fossil energy resources. As a result a new thrust on research and development in boilers bases on rice husk is given to commercialize the concept. CFD is the analysis of systems involving fluid flow, heat transfer and associated phenomena such as chemical reactions by means of computer-based simulation. High quality Computational Fluid dynamics (CFD) is an effective engineering tool for Power Engineering Industry. It can determine detailed flow distributions, temperatures, and pollutant concentrations with excellent accuracy, and without excessive effort by the software user. In the other words it is the science of predicting fluid flow, heat and mass transfer, chemical reactions and related phenomena; and an innovate strategy to conform to regulations and yet stay ahead in today’s competitive power market. This paper is divided into two parts; in first part review of CFD applied to the various types of boilers based on biomass fuels/alternative fuels is presented. In second part CFD analysis of fluidized bed boilers based on rice husk considering the rice husk based furnace has been discussed. The eulerian multiphase model has used for fluidized bed. Fluidized bed has been modeled using Fluent 6.2 commercial code. The effect of numerical influence of bed superheater tubes has also been discussed.

An investigation of co-combustion municipal sewage sludge with biomass in a 20 kW BFB combustor under air-fired and oxygen-enriched condition

The behavior of municipal sewage sludge (MSS) with biomass (Guar stalks (GS), Mustard Husk (MH), Prosopis Juliflora Wood (PJW)) has been investigated in a 20kW bubbling fluidized bed (BFB) combustor under both air-fired (A-F) and oxygen-enriched (O-E) conditions. The work presented is divided into three parts, first part cover the thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), second part cover the experimental investigation of BFB combustor, and third part covers the ash analysis. TGA was performed with a ratio of 50%MSS/50%biomass (GS, MH, PJW) and results show that 50%MSS/50%GS has highest combustion characteristic factor (CCF). The experimental investigation of BFB combustor was performed for two different ratios of MSS/biomass (50%/50% and 25%/75%) and the combustion characteristics of blends were distinctive under both A-F and O-E condition. Despite 50%MSS/50%GS showing the highest combustion performance in TGA analysis, it formed agglomerates during burning in BFB. Due to this formation of large amount of agglomerates, de-fluidization was observed in the combustor bed after 65-75min in A-F conditions. The rate of de-fluidization increased under O-E condition. The de-fluidization problem disappeared when the share of MSS was reduced to 25%, but small amounts of the agglomerate were still present in the bed. With oxygen enhancement, the combustion efficiency of BFB combustor was improved and flue gasses were found within permissible limit. The maximum conceivable combustion efficiency (97.1%) for BFB combustor was accomplished by using 50% MSS/50%PJW under O-E condition. Results show that a ratio of 25%MSS/75%biomass combusted successfully inside the BFB combustor and extensive work is required for efficient utilization of significant share of MSS with biomass. SEM/EDS analyses were performed for agglomerate produced and for the damaged heater to study the surface morphology and compositions. The elemental heterogeneity of fly ash generated during MSS/biomass combustion was analyzed using Microwave Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (MP-AES).

CFD Analysis of a Fluidized Bed Combustor Based on Co-Firing

In this paper computational analysis of a real plant Bubbling Fluidized Bed (BFB) combustor has been done, using FLUENT 6.3, CFD code. Keeping in mind the biomass potential in the agricultural state like Punjab, India, various corporate sectors initiated the use of these renewable energy sources such as rice husk, paddy rejects and sugarcane baggase etc. in sharing with conventional fuels such as coal. The study has been done at Captive Power Plant (CPP) of Ambuja Cement Limited, Ropar, Punjab, India. The boiler, with 45TPH capacity, based on Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) system uses coal and biomass (70% coal and 30% biomass) as fuels.Standard k–e two-phase turbulence model has been used to describe the gas–solids flow in the BFB. The analysis of combustion is done by Non-Pre Mixed (NPM) approach in species model. In this paper temperature contours inside the furnace and mass fractions of O2 and CO2 have been obtained by CFD tool. Temperature in the vicinity of the bed was found up to 927 °C and at the exit of the furnace was found around 867 °C. The O2 concentration was found higher over the bed however the CO2 concentration was found more near biomass flame due to instantaneous combustion.Copyright