CFD modeling of combustion in biomass furnace

Abstract

Due to the need for the optimization of industrial furnaces Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is an important and indispensable tool for understanding for instance the mixing between flue gases, combustion air and the pollutant formation. This paper reports a computational fluid dynamics analysis of an industrial biomass boiler. The analysis was carried out using a CFD model for the combustion of the volatile gases released from the biomass combustion in the grate. The results obtained for the temperature, velocity and concentration of species fields within the boiler are now being used to enable the analysis and optimization of the combustion process. Moreover, the results show that inside the furnace the mixing of the gases with the combustion air could be improved, for instance through the optimization of the secondary air flow in relation to the operating conditions of the boiler, which would lead to the lower pollutant emissions.