Abstract
In addition to CO2 and H2O, industrial flares may also release Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), NOx, and CO among others. Since experimental measurements of these emissions are expensive, rigorous computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and the accrued correlations are viable tools to understand and analyze factors affecting flare operations. In this paper, parametric studies of air and steam assisted ethylene flares based on CFD modeling were employed to investigate important flare operating parameters such as vent gas velocity, crosswind velocity, stoichiometric air ratio, steam-to-fuel ratio and heat content of the vent gas. The CFD modeling utilized a 50-species reduced mechanism (LU 1.1) based on rigorous combustion chemistry. Validation results of LU 1.1 are also presented. The destruction/removal efficiency and the combustion efficiency (DRE & CE) were computed along with HRVOCs/VOCs/NOx emission rates to quantify the flare performance. Correlations between DRE/CE and major parameters (crosswind, jet velocity, and combustion zone heating value) were developed using the results obtained from the case studies. A modified combustion zone heating value definition was proposed to compute a comprehensive heating value in the combustion zone.
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