Numerical Study of One Air-Fired and Two Oxy-Fuel Combustion Cases of Propane in a 100 kW Furnace

Abstract

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling study has been carried out. The study involved gaseous fuel combustion with associated chemical reactions, radiative heat transfer, and turbulence. The three different combustion environments that were adopted experimentally in a 100 kW drop-tube firing unit were examined. One air-fired and two oxy-fuel-fired cases [21 vol % O2 for one combustion case (OF21) and 27 vol % O2 for the other combustion case (OF27)] were investigated. A swirl injection system was used to achieve the flame stability of the turbulent non-premixed combustible gases. A modified eddy breakup (EBU) model was used with appropriate empirical coefficients for propane combustion reactions. The irreversible single-step and reversible multi-step reaction mechanisms were considered. The overall agreement of the CFD results with the available measured data was reasonable. The data compared were the temperature distributions and the species concentrations (CO2, CO, and O2) at the most intensive c...