Application of CFD in thermal power plants

Computational uid dynamics (CFD) are used to under-
stand complex thermal ow regimes in power plants. The
thermal power plant may be divided into dierent sub-
sectors and the CFD analysis applied to critical equip-
ment/components - mainly dierent types of heat ex-
changers - which are of crucial signicance for ecient
and trouble free long-term operation of the plant.
2.2 Finite element method
Finite element method uses piece wise functions valid on
elements to describe the local variations of unknown ow
variables. Here also a set of algebraic equations are gen-
erated to determine unknown co-ecients.

2.3 Finite volume method

1 Overview Finite volume method is probably the most popular
method used for numerical discretization in CFD. This
The thermal power station subsystem involves multiphase method is similar in some ways to the nite dierence
ow, phase transformation and complex chemical reac- method. This approach involves the discretization of the
tion associated with conjugate heat transfer. spatial domain into nite control volumes. The govern-
ing equations in their dierential form are integrated over
each control volume. The resulting integral conservation
laws are exactly satised for each control volume and for
the entire domain, which is a distinct advantage of the -
nite volume method. Each integral term is then converted
into a discrete form, thus yielding discretised equations at
the centroids, or nodal points, of the control volumes.

3 Application of CFD in thermal

power plants

3.1 Low NOx burner design

Typical layout of thermal power plant
. which result in production of ozone and acid rain. NOx
2 Methods
2.1 Finite dierence method
Finite dierence method describes the unknowns of the
ow problem by means of point samples at the node
points of a grid co-ordinate lines. Taylor series expan-
sions are used to generate nite dierence approxima-
tions of derivatives in terms of point samples at each grid
point and its immediate neighbours. Those derivatives
appearing in the governing equations are replaced by -
nite dierences yielding an algebraic equation.
When fossil fuels are burned, Nitric oxide and Nitrogen
dioxide are produced. These pollutants initiate reactions
formation takes place due to (1) High temperature com-
bustion i.e. thermal NOx and (2)Nitrogen bound to fuel
i.e. fuel NOx and which is insignicant. In the major-
ity of cases the level of thermal NOx can be reduced by
lowering ame temperature. This can be done by modi-
fying the burner to create a larger (hence lower temper-
ature) ame, in turn reducing the NOx formation. The
role of CFD analysis is vital for design and analysis of
such low NOx burners. Many available CFD tools, such
as CFX, Fluent, Star CCM++ with dierent models as
RNG k- turbulence models with hybrid and CONDIF
upwind dierencing schemes has been used for analysis
purpose and the data obtained with these analysis helped
in modifying the burner design in turn lowering the ad-
verse eect on the environment due to NOx formation
during combustion.[1]

1
2 5 FURTHER READING
3.2 CFD analysis of economiser
The economiser is a crucial component for ecient per-
formance of a thermal power plant. It is a non-steaming
type of heat exchanger which is placed in the convective
zone of the furnace. It takes the heat energy of the ue
gases for heating the feed water before it enters the boiler
drum. The thermal eciency/boiler eciency largely de-
pends on the performance of the economiser. CFD anal-
ysis helps in optimizing the thermal performance of the
economiser by analysing the pressure, velocity and tem-
perature distribution, and to identify the critical areas for
further improvement with the result obtained by CFD
analysis.
3.3 CFD analysis of superheaters
Superheaters, which are generally placed in the radiant
zone of the furnace, are used for increasing the tempera-
ture of dry saturated steam coming out from boiler drum
and to maintain the required parameters before sending
it to the steam turbine. The thermal eciency of a ther-
mal power plant depends on the performance of the su-
perheater. The CFD analysis of superheaters is done
at design stage and later at the troubleshooting and per-
formance evaluation during the operation of the plant.
The CFD results obtained can be useful for the mainte-
nance engineer to make suitable predictions of the tube
life and make suitable arrangements for the high temper-
ature zone to reduce the erosion of the tube coil and re-
stricting the tube leakage problem. CFD analysis con-
sists of modelling the superheater and doing analysis to
study the velocity, pressure and temperature distribution
of the steam inside the superheater. The uneven temper-
ature distribution of steam in the tube leads to boiler tube
leakage. CFD also helps to study the eect of the operat-
ing parameters on the tube erosion rate. Thermal power
plants operates round the year and it is not always possi-
ble to shut down and analyse the problem. CFD helps in
this.
3.4 CFD analysis of pulverized coal com-
bustion
In a thermal power plant combustion of fuel, especially
pulverized coal, is of signicant importance. Proper and
complete combustion, with the required proportions of
air and fuel, is required for total energy transfer to water
for steam generation and to reduce pollutants. CFD mod-
els based on fundamental conservation equations of mass,
energy, chemical species and momentum can be used to
simulate the ow of air and coal through the burners. The
results obtained from CFD analyses give insight to iden-
tify the potential areas for improvement.[2]
3.5 CFD application in other areas of ther-
mal power plants
There are some other areas of importance where CFD can
play a signicant role in performance and eciency im-
provement. The unbalanced coal/air ow in the pipe sys-
tems of coal red power plants leads to non-uniform com-
bustion in the furnace, and hence an overall lower e-
ciency of the boiler. A common solution to this problem
is to put orices in the pipe systems to balance the ow.
If the orices are sized to balance clean airow to indi-
vidual burners connected to a pulverizer, the coal/airow
would still be unbalanced and vice versa. The CFD with
standard ke two-phase ow model can be used to calcu-
late pressure drop coecients for the coal/air as well as
the clean air ow.[3]
The CFD is also used to obtain the numerical solution
to address the problem of water wall erosion of the fur-
nace of a thermal power plant. This is caused by ame
misalignment, thermal attack and erosion due to the con-
tact with chemicals. The ame misalignment occurs
because of alteration in uid dynamics factors due to
burner geometry. CFD results show velocity proles,
pressure proles, streamlines and other data that is help-
ful in understanding the uid ow phenomena inside the
equipment.[4] It is clearly evident from above examples
how crucial is the application of CFD in addressing the
bottlenecks in thermal power plants, improving power
plant eciency and assisting in maintenance decisions.
4 References
[1] P. J Stopford, Recent Application of CFD Modeling in
the Power Generation and Combustion Industries, Ap-
plied Mathematical Modeling, Vol 26, Pg. No. 351-374,
2002.
[2] Cristiano V. da Silva, Maria Luiza S. Indrusiak, Arthur B.
Beskow " CFD Analysis of the Pulverized Coal Combus-
tion Processes in a 160 MWe Tangentially-Fired-Boiler
of a Thermal Power Plant Journal of the Braz. Soc.
of Mech. Sci. & Eng. OctoberDecember 2010, Vol.
XXXII, No. 4.
[3] SowjanyaVijiapurapua, JieCuia, SastryMunukutla CFD
application for coal/air balancing in power plants
AppliedMathematicalModelling30(2006)854866
[4] Jairo Z. Souzaa, Leonardo P. Rangel Numerical Sim-
ulation of Coal Boiler at Electric Thermal Plants Using
Computational Fluid Dynamics 10th International Sym-
posium on Process Systems Engineering - PSE2009
5 Further reading
Krunal .P Mudae, Hemant S. Farkade CFD analy-
sis of economizer in a tengential red boiler, Inter-
 3

national Journal of Mechanical and Industrial En-

gineering (IJMIE) ISSN No. 2231 6477, Vol-2,
Iss-4, 2012.

Ajay N. Ingale, Vivek C. Pathade, Dr. Vivek H. Tat-

wawadi CFD Analysis of Superheater in View of
Boiler Tube Leakage International Journal of Engi-
neering and Innovative Technology (IJEIT) Volume
1, Issue 3, March 2012
H.Versteg, W.malalasekra " An Introduction to
Computational Fluid Dynamics Second edi-
tion,Pearson Publications.
4 6 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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