Numerical Study on Unsteady Combustion in Stoker Furnace

Takashi Ikeda, P.E.Jp Manager Market & Technology Insight Group at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries presents at the 2024 ATCx DEM.

Garbage is regarded as one of the primary carbon neutral energy resources. Waste incinerator with stoker furnace generates power using garbage, and it has relatively stable supply of electricity compared to other renewable energy resource.

In stoker furnace, energy and chemical transportation by solid phase and gas phase with chemical reaction significantly may affect the combustion phenomena. Therefore, it is necessary to construct the simulation code to consider not only solid and gas phase behavior but also interaction of each other and chemical reaction.

In this study, Discrete Element Method (DEM) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) were strongly coupled for reconstructing phenomena in stoker furnace. In addition, chemical reaction of solid and gas phase was also implemented in those simulation. Although simulation showed a similar flame location compared to actual furnace under steady operation conditions, flame had unsteady flickering. It is considered that flickering of flame mainly caused by variation of amount of intermittent fuel supply.