Simulation and experimental validation studies on a new type umbrella plate scrubber

Abstract

Scrubbers are being widely used to removal the dust, dioxide sulfur and other harmful gases, which emitted from coal-burning boilers. In this paper, the new type umbrella plate scrubber was developed and studied through computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and experimental methods. Initial work included gas phase simulation using standard k– ɛ turbulent model and Reynolds stress model (RSM). After gas phase was converged, particles were injected into the new device. Discrete phase model (DPM) was used for particle trajectories determination. The pressure drop and the collection efficiency of the device were predicted through simulation. The simulative results show that the pressure drop of the device is 230–250 Pa and the efficiency is about 84–86%, with the inlet velocity equal to 10.6 m/s and the dust concentration ranging from 2 to 22 g/m 3. As the dust concentration was 61.81 g/m 3, both the pressure drop and the efficiency increase with inlet velocity (less than 12 m/s) increase. However, the inlet velocity increases continuously, the pressure drop still increase, and the efficiency increase relaxed. In addition, the experiment was conducted to validate the simulative results, which show good agreements. The relative error of the pressure drop and the efficiency are approximately 4% and 10%, respectively. The results obtained both from the simulation and from the experiment have demonstrated that simulation is an effective method for study the new device. Furthermore, the study indicates that significant improvements on the new type of umbrella plates could be realized by maintaining comparable the efficiency at a lower pressure drop.