Zheng Chuguang

Non-equilibrium extrapolation method for velocity and pressure boundary conditions in the lattice Boltzmann method

In this paper, we propose a new approach to implementing boundary conditions in the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The basic idea is to decompose the distribution function at the boundary node into its equilibrium and non-equilibrium parts and then to approximate the non-equilibrium part with a first-order extrapolation of the non-equilibrium part of the distribution at the neighbouring fluid node. Schemes for velocity and pressure boundary conditions are constructed based on this method. The resulting schemes are of second-order accuracy. Numerical tests show that the numerical solutions of the LBM together with the present boundary schemes are in excellent agreement with the analytical solutions. Second-order convergence is also verified from the results. It is also found that the numerical stability of the present schemes is much better than that of the original extrapolation schemes proposed by Chen et al. (1996 Phys. Fluids 8 2527).

Physical structure and combustion properties of super fine pulverized coal particle

Abstract Physical structures and combustion properties of super fine pulverized coal particles of eight Chinese coals, Heshan subbituminous coals and Jincheng lean coals from two areas of China, have been investigated using accelerated surface area and porosimetry, thermobalance (TGA), and Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Results showed that the particle specific surface area and pore volume increased greatly when the coal particle size was reduced. The higher the carbon content on a dry ash-free basis is, the larger the particle specific surface area and pore volume are. When the coal particle size decreases, the combustion process can be largely improved, ignition temperature is reduced, and SO 2 emission from coal combustion is also lower.

Stochastic algorithm and numerical simulation for drop scavenging of aerosols

The time evolution of aerosol size distribution during precipitation, which is founded mathematically by general dynamic equation (GDE) for wet removal, describes quantitatively the process of aerosol wet scavenging. The equation depends on aerosol size distribution, raindrop size distribution and the complicated model of scavenging co-efficient which is induced by taking account of the important wet removal mechanisms such as Brownian diffusion, interception and inertial impaction. Normal numerical methods can hardly solve GDE, which is a typical partially integro-differential equation. A new multi-Monte Carlo method was introduced to solve GDE for wet removal, and then was used to simulate the wet scavenging of aerosols in the real atmospheric environment. The results of numerical simulation show that, the smaller lognormal raindrop size distribution and lognormal initial aerosol size distribution, the smaller geometric mean diameter or geometric standard deviation of raindrops can help scavenge small aerosols and intermediate size aerosols better, though large aerosols are prevented from being collected in some ways.

Preliminary study of trace element emissions and control during coal combustion

Hazardous trace element emissions have caused serious harm to human health in China. Several typical high-toxic trace element coals were collected from different districts and were used to investigate the emission characteristics of toxic trace elements (As, Se, Cr, Hg) and to explore preliminary control methods. Coal combustion tests were conducted in several bench-scale furnaces including drop tube furnace (DTF), circulating fluidized bed (CFB) combustion furnace, and fixed-bed combustion furnace. Calcium oxide was used to control the emission of arsenic and selenium. The granular activated carbons (AC) and activated-carbon fibers (ACF) were used to remove mercury in the flue gas from coal combustion. The chemical composition and trace element contents of ash and particulate matter (PM) were determined by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES), respectively. The speciation and concentration of mercury were investigated using the Ontario-Hydro method. X-ray diffraction spectrometry (XRD) was used to determine the mineral composition of production during combustion experiments. With the addition of a calcium-based sorbent, arsenic concentration in PM1 sharply decreased from 0.25–0.11 mg/m3. In fixed-bed combustion of coal, the retention rates of selenium volatiles were between 11.6% and 50.7% using lime. In the circulating fluidized-bed combustion of coal, the content of selenium in ash from the chimney was reduced to one-fourth of its original value and that in leaching water from the chimney decreased by two orders of magnitude using lime. Calcium-based sorbent is an effective additive to control the emission of As and Se during coal combustion. The emission of chromium is influenced by the occurrence mode of Cr in coal. Chromium emission in PM2.5 during coal combustion is 55.5 and 34.7 μg/m3 for Shenbei coal and mixed Pingdingshan coal, respectively. The adsorptive capacity of granular activated carbon for Hg0 is significantly enhanced through ZnCl2-impregnation. The activated carbon fibers showed decent efficiency in mercury adsorption, on which surface oxygen complex showed positive effects on mercury adsorption.

A Novel Lattice Boltzmann Model For Reactive Flows with Fast Chemistry

A novel lattice Boltzmann model, in which we take the ratio of temperature difference in the temperature field to the environment one to be more than one order of magnitude than before, is developed to simulate two-dimensional reactive flows with fast chemistry. Different from the hybrid scheme for reactive flows [Comput. Phys. Commun. 129 (2000) 267], this scheme is strictly in a pure lattice Boltzmann style (i.e., we solve the flow, temperature, and concentration fields using the lattice Boltzmann method only). Different from the recent non-coupled lattice Boltzmann scheme [Int. J. Mod. Phys. B 17 (2003) 197], the fluid density in our model is coupled directly with the temperature. Excellent agreement between the present results and other numerical data shows that this scheme is an efficient numerical method for practical reactive flows with fast chemistry.

Lattice-Boltzmann simulation of particle-laden flow over a backward-facing step

This paper deals with the numerical simulation of gas–solid two-phase flows in an Eulerian–Lagrangian scheme. The particle tracks are calculated using a recently developed exponential Lagrangian scheme and the approach presently used for the computation of fluid phase is based on a modified Lattice-BGK model. Different from earlier publications, the present study employs a two-way coupling mechanism to handle the interactions between carrier phase and dispersed phase in the model. This new model is applicable to simulating gas–solid two-phase flows. For example, based on the scheme, we have recaptured some phenomena of planar laminar particle-laden flow over a backward-facing step in this research and found a new interesting phenomenon.

Thermodynamic equilibrium study of mineral elements evaporation in O2/CO2 recycle combustion

Abstract The facility for the analysis of chemical thermodynamics method (F*A*C*T) based on the Gibbs energy minimization principle, was used to characterize the evaporation of mineral elements of coal in O 2 /CO 2 recycle combustion. The effects of atmosphere and temperature on the speciation of mineral species were discussed. The results show that Na(K)Cl(g), FeO(g), and SiO(g) are the dominant gaseous species of the mineral elements. The dominant species of mineral elements in flue gases depend on both the combustion conditions (reducing or oxidizing) and the atmosphere. In O 2 /CO 2 mixture combustion, the evaporation rate of mineral elements is much lower than that in air combustion, especially under reducing atmosphere. The total evaporation of mineral elements in O 2 /CO 2 atmosphere and air combustion under reducing conditions is 4.46% and 9.65% respectively, up to the temperature of 2400 K. The calculation values are consistent with the experiment values. The decrease in the mineral element evaporation is helpful to suppress the tendency to form fine particle matter and the tendency of initial ash deposition.

Quasi-constant temperature combustion for improving the overall performance of a coal-fired boiler

Abstract After reviewing the current combustion technologies for burning pulverized coal with frequent and large fluctuations in coal quality and load demand, a new concept of quasi-constant temperature combustion for pulverized coal is proposed. In this method, combustion temperatures near the burners are maintained almost constant using a moveable multilayer heat-insulation device, which is installed on the fire-side of the furnace water-wall and can be moved up and down during operation. The results obtained from numerical modeling and experimental investigation show that such an insulation device can greatly improve the distribution of the flue gas temperature and can maintain the temperature effectively constant near the burner for a wider range of boiler load if the heat-insulation area of the MHID is sufficiently large. In addition, such quasi-constant temperature combustion can remarkably decrease losses of unburned materials at low loads. It can be inferred from the experiments that MHID has a good chance of being applied in practice.

Turbulence Modulations in the Boundary Layer of a Horizontal Particle-Laden Channel Flow

Turbulence modulations are experimentally investigated using particle image velocimetry (PIV) in the lower boundary layer of a fully developed horizontal channel flow. A simultaneous two-phase PIV measurement technique is adopted to acquire the turbulent statistics quantities and to examine the coherent structures in the near-wall region. Polythene beads with diameters of 60 μm are used as dispersed phases, and the PIV measurements have been performed at three mass loadings varying from 2.5 × 10−4 to 5 × 10−3. All the experiments are performed at a wall shear Reynolds number of Reτ = 430. The results show that the presence of the particles suppresses the coherent structures, with shorter streamwise extent of the quasistreamwise structures, and then, the wall-normal velocity fluctuations and shear Reynolds stresses are both decreased in the near-core region. In addition, as a result of the particle wake, the turbulence intensity and shear Reynolds stress both increase in the vicinity of the wall. Due to the drag effects of the particles on the gas, the streamwise velocity gradients decrease in the outer region and increase in the viscous sublayer, meanwhile the thickness of the viscous sublayer also decreases. These results cause the peak values of the streamwise velocity fluctuations adjacent to the wall to increase, and the peak positions shift to the wall. This is the reason for decreasing the near-wall region and increasing the near-core region of the streamwise velocity fluctuations in appearance.

Monte carlo simulation for simultaneous particle coagulation and deposition

The process of dynamic evolution in dispersed systems due to simultaneous particle coagulation and deposition is described mathematically by general dynamic equation (GDE). Monte Carlo (MC) method is an important approach of numerical solutions of GDE. However, constant-volume MC method exhibits the contradictory of low computation cost and high computation precision owing to the fluctuation of the number of simulation particles; constant-number MC method can hardly be applied to engineering application and general scientific quantitative analysis due to the continual contraction or expansion of computation domain. In addition, the two MC methods depend closely on the “subsystem” hypothesis, which constraints their expansibility and the scope of application. A new multi-Monte Carlo (MMC) method is promoted to take account of GDE for simultaneous particle coagulation and deposition. MMC method introduces the concept of “weighted fictitious particle” and is based on the “time-driven” technique. Furthermore MMC method maintains synchronously the computational domain and the total number of fictitious particles, which results in the latent expansibility of simulation for boundary condition, the space evolution of particle size distribution and even particle dynamics. The simulation results of MMC method for two special cases in which analytical solutions exist agree with analytical solutions well, which proves that MMC method has high and stable computational precision and low computation cost because of the constant and limited number of fictitious particles. Lastly the source of numerical error and the relative error of MMC method are analyzed, respectively.