Numerical Analyses of the Effects of Fuel Load Variation on Combustion Performance of a Pellet Fuelled Boiler

Abstract

Domestic and industrial energy requirements since the beginning of industrial revolution have been largely met by fossil fuels. This leads to a continuous increase in the Earth's atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other harmful components. Also fossil energy resources decreasing day by day and scientists have turned to new research. In this context alternative energy sources have an important role to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. One of the alternative energy sources is biomass and pellet fuel is one of them. In this study, combustion characteristics of pellet fuel in a model smoke tube boiler at different loading conditions were investigated numerically. As a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) program FLUENT package program was used. Calculations were performed at two dimensional conditions. According to various loading conditions, temperature and stream function contours, velocity vectors, exhaust gas temperatures and efficiencies were investigated and results were discussed.

Keywords

• Biofuels; Numerical modeling; Pellet; Pellet boilers

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