Thermal-flow calculations for a thermal waste treatment plant and CFD modelling of the spread of gases in the context of urban structures

Abstract

Thermal waste treatment plants are an answer to the important problem of waste neutralization on the one hand, while inspiring various emotions in society due to their impact on their planned or existing sites on the other. The primary benefit from incinerating waste is the ability to reuse it as fuel to produce energy. The objective of the research presented in this paper was to assess the production potential of eco-incinerators and to investigate the potential impact that the operation of a thermal waste treatment plant can have on its surroundings. To this end, the study included analyses in three problem groups: urban planning, balance calculations and the numerical modeling of fouling spread. The area subjected to the analyses was a district of a model city with a plant at the center. The goal of the CFD modeling was to determine the spread of gaseous pollutants (CO, CO2, SO2, NOx) produced as a result of the incineration of municipal waste in the incineration plant, to get their approximate mass fraction values at a distance of 1 km from the smokestack outlet. The spread of gaseous pollutants in CFD modeling was simulated using the k-epsilon RNG model. It is noticeable that the largest mass fraction of the given gases has carbon dioxide, which is also characterized as a 1.5 times heavier gas than the air. The paper also presents thermal calculations that present the performance of the entire thermal waste treatment plant, which depends on the final use of the energy it produces.