A study of flame and flow structures and their effect on emission properties in a bidirectional vortex pulverized peat combustor

Abstract

The paper reports on experimental and numerical studies of flame and flow structures in a bidirectional vortex pulverized peat combustor. This study seeks to develop a new method of burning solid pulverized fuel in a bidirectional swirling flow suggested in prior literature. To this end, reactive and non-reactive modes at different input parameters have been examined. Special attention was given to the effect of flame and flow on pollutant emissions, e.g., CO and NOx. It is numerically and experimentally shown that the bidirectional combustor facilitates environmentally friendly and stable combustion of solid pulverized fuel in a wide range of boundary conditions. However, in terms of flame and flow structures, the most effective operating modes have been observed at n ≥ 5.0. Moreover, a similarity of the reaction fronts and velocity profiles is observed within the same range of values of n. Variations in thermal power cause only quantitative changes in parameter distributions, whereas qualitative characteristics of these distributions remain unchanged.