A DNS study of pulverized coal combustion in a hot turbulent environment: Effects of particle size, mass loading and preferential concentration

Abstract

In the present study, pulverized coal combustion in a hot turbulent environment is investigated using direct numerical simulation (DNS). The coal particles are tracked in the Lagrangian framework while the flow is solved in an Eulerian way. A model involving two competing reactions is used for describing the process of coal devolatilization. The volatile matter is treated as a postulated substance (CaHbOc) and a two-step global reaction mechanism for volatile combustion is adopted. The char combustion is modeled using a one-step global reaction model. The effects of various factors, such as particle size, mass loading and preferential concentration, on the combustion process of coal particles were explored. It was found that, the location of reaction zones appears more upstream and the volatile matter concentration is higher for the cases with smaller particles. The combustion modes were examined. It was shown that the contribution of premixed combustion decreases with increasing particle size while non-premixed combustion prevails in all cases. The increase of particle mass loading results in an increase of volatile matter mass fraction, which leads to higher heat release rate and combustion temperature. Through Voronoï analysis, the preferential concentration of particles was examined. It was found that the preferential concentration behavior of particles is more prominent when the particle Stokes number (St) is close to unity. The volatile matter concentration is higher when particles are preferentially concentrated, facilitating coal particles to ignite.