RDF incineration modelling trough thermo-chemical conversion and gaseous combustion coupling

Michela Costa, Christian Curcio, Daniele Piazzullo, Vittorio Rocco and Raffaele Tuccillo

Energy, 2018, vol. 161, issue C, 974-987

Abstract: The present work is focused on a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model of a real-scale waste-to-energy plant, accounting for the coupling between thermo-chemical conversion of solid Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) and gaseous combustion of released syngas. The first process is simulated through an in-house two-zone zero-dimensional model, consisting of solid RDF drying and its conversion into syngas, while the turbulent gaseous combustion taking place in the freeboard is simulated by a 3D CFD model developed within the Ansys FLUENT environment. This approach, validated in a previous work, is here more deeply analysed, performing a parametric analysis of the two-zones thermo-chemical conversion model to evaluate the effects of the extension of the drying zone on the whole simulation process and to quantify the limits related to this hypothesis. The coupled model predictive capability is tested in different conditions, varying the amount of drying and gasifying agent mass flow rates, to verify the model physical consistency and analyze the effects of the main governing parameters on biomass conversion. The influence of the radiative thermal power on the RDF moisture evaporation rate is assessed, while the gaseous combustion is described through a more accurate chemical kinetics mechanism, determining a low increase in the computational cost.

Keywords: MSW; Freeboard; CFD; Gasification; Incineration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544218314397
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:161:y:2018:i:c:p:974-987

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.07.142

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().