Fuel 88 (2009) 24482454

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Fuel
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel

Modelling methods for co-red pulverised fuel furnaces

L. Ma b, M. Gharebaghi b, R. Porter b,*, M. Pourkashanian b, J.M. Jones a, A. Williams b
a b

Energy and Resources Research Institute, School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK Centre for Computational Fluid Dynamics, School of Process, Environmental and Materials Engineering, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Co-ring of biomass and coal can be benecial in reducing the carbon footprint of energy production. Accurate modelling of co-red furnaces is essential to discover potential problems that may occur during biomass ring and to mitigate potential negative effects of biomass fuels, including lower efciency due to lower burnout and NOx formation issues. Existing coal combustion models should be modied to increase reliability of predictions for biomass, including factors such as increased drag due to non-spherical particle sizes and accounting for organic compounds and the effects they have on NOx emission. Detailed biomass co-ring models have been developed and tested for a range of biomass fuels and show promising results. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 30 September 2008 Received in revised form 21 October 2008 Accepted 12 February 2009 Available online 13 March 2009 Keywords: Computational uid dynamics Co-ring Biomass combustion

1. Introduction Co-ring pulverised coal with biomass offers considerable potential environmentally because of the reduction of sulphur dioxide (SOx), the potential reduction of nitric oxides (NOx) and the reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions [1]. Co-ring also offers a means of extending fossil fuel resources and can be used with a wide range of different of coals ranging from anthracite to lignites, with a wide range of biomass types. The biomass materials that can be used fall into two broad classes; agricultural residues and energy crops, whose properties (moisture, nitrogen content) depend on their history and pre-treatment [1]. In this paper, a theoretical study has been made of co-ring in an industrial test furnace with examples from both classes of biomass and forms an extension of previous co-ring studies, in order to test the applicability of the models [2]. Currently co-ring coal with a limited amount of biomass has been widely implemented in existing coal-red power plants. Often the amount of biomass added to the normal coal feed is limited in large-scale power plants to 5% on a thermal basis since milling biomass and coal together presents problems that substantially limit its use in unmodied existing coal-red plants. Larger quantities of biomass can be red if separate biomass mills and associated burners are installed. This is mainly because of the difculty of reducing biomass to sufciently small particles to achieve complete combustion in the combustion chamber.

2. Mathematical modelling Computational uid dynamic (CFD) models have been widely used to simulate combustion in coal-red power station combustors [35]. At present, CFD models are used as an aid to design rather than as a primary design tool since, some aspects of the work they are not accurate enough, and can be very time consuming. In the case of co-ring there are additional complexities. Details of the CFD models employed are outlined below and then computational predictions are compared to experimental data from a research furnace. 2.1. Governing equations A CFD model has been applied to co-ring of pulverised coal and biomass in a 0.5 MW combustion test facility (CTF). During modelling, attention was focussed on co-ring of two dissimilar fuels, including the combustion of the larger and irregular biomass particles which can result in the milling process as described before [2,6]. The CFD model is formulated using an EulerianLagrange frame of reference, the gas phase combustion is calculated in the Eulerian frame of reference and the motion and combustion of the solid fuel particles are tracked in a Lagrangian reference frame. There is constant exchange of momentum, mass and heat between the combusting gas and solid particles and the exchanges between the two systems appear as source/sink terms in the governing equations for the continuous gas phase ows as well as those for the discrete solid particles. For gas ow, the governing mass, momentum, and energy equations can be typically represented by the following scalar transport Eq. (1):

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 113 343 481; fax: +44 113 246 7310. E-mail address: pmrp@leeds.ac.uk (R. Porter). 0016-2361/$ - see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2009.02.030

@ qUk =@x @qui Uk Ck @ Uk =@xi =@xi SUk

k 1; . . . ; N

L. Ma et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 24482454

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C and SU are the diffusion coefcient and relevant source terms for the N scalars (Uk) in the system. In the case of pulverised fuel combustion, the source term SU should include the contributions from the solid particles, namely, Ss, representing the exchange of mass, momentum, and heat between the two phases. When two dissimilar solid fuels are involved, such as those concerned in this paper, then two sets of such source terms representing the different contributions from the two fuels have to be considered.
2.2. Heat transfer Radiative heat transfer is the dominant mode of heat transfer in a pulverised fuel combustion chamber and governs temperature and heat ux proles. Radiation also plays a signicant part in particle heating up, ignition and char combustion. The gray radiative transfer equation (RTE) at position r in the direction s for an absorbing, emitting, and scattering medium, such as those in combustion systems, can be expressed as follows (2):

dIr; s=ds a rs Ir; s an2 rT 4 =p Z rs = p Ir; sUs; s0 dX0

4p

where a and rs are the absorption and the scattering coefcient respectively, I is the radiation intensity and s is the scattering direction vector. The correct solution of heat transfer and temperature proles within the furnace can be very difcult and calculation of heat transfer to the outside of the chamber can be problematic. Firstly, there are problems in calculating the heat loss through the walls of the combustion chamber because often the construction is complex and consists of different materials together with embedded cooling tubes. The build up of slag also affects heat transfer through the walls. The furnace considered in this paper has water cooled walls, therefore the thermal resistance at the operating temperature of the wall can dene the thermal conductivity of the wall and a xed temperature on the outer wall of the furnace are used as boundary conditions in the model. Other boundary and input conditions related to the heat transfer are discussed below. Based on earlier studies [6] and from additional experimental measurements we took the values of the emissivity to be 0.85 for the slag at the wall operating temperature and 0.9 for the combusting char. The scattering by discrete particles is determined by the particle reectivity, area of particle and a scattering factor. The factor indicates the scattering properties of a particle; 1 indicates total forward scattering (effectively treated as transmission). In our work this factor was set to 0.6, indicating forward scattering. Some papers [7] indicate a value of 0.9 is more appropriate and this value is still subject to some discussion. The scattering from the discrete phase particles is not constant throughout burning because the radiative properties of y ash are different from coal/char particles. The scattering by particles becomes more forward directed for both char and ash particles as the particle dimension increases [8]. The radiative properties of the particles are also dependent upon the refractive index of the particle, m = n ik. For coal particles the real part of the index, n, is fairly similar for many coals, with the variation mostly caused by the imaginary part. Although, these properties are important, current modelling of scattering in CFD used here does not require specication of the refractive index. Directly solving the RTE and correct calculation of absorption coefcients and emissivity of the gas and fuel/ash particles is very challenging and therefore various approximations are employed for engineering applications. A review of the various models used in combustion systems for CFD applications can be found in [9]. For pulverised fuel combustion in CFD, the P1 and the Discrete Ordinate (DO) radiation models are often chosen, for example

Backreedy et al. [2] and Knaus et al. [10]. There are extensive discussions on the use of radiation models in pulverised coal combustion [10]. In brief, the P1 model is a rst order approximation to the RTE by integration where the radiation intensity is represented by a series of spherical harmonics. It is therefore mathematically simple, easy to implement and computationally robust. It has been applied to pulverised fuel combustion [11] and produces most accurate results if the optical dimension of the medium is large. The DO radiation model approximates the solution to the RTE by discretizing the entire solid angle (4p) into a nite number of solid angles. Within each solid angle the intensity is assumed to be constant and the RTE is solved for each direction that corresponds to a solid angle [12]. Increasing the neness of the angular discretization increases the accuracy of the prediction, however there is a penalty of additional computation time. The DO radiation model is more computationally expensive than the P1 model but is suitable for all optical thicknesses. In this study the DO model is used whereas in some previous studies the P1 model was employed. This was done because the DO model is a more detailed and accurate model but more demanding on computational time, however more powerful computers are available and this is now our rst choice. Soot formation can also have signicant impact on the radiative heat ux in the furnace. Soot can be formed from the tar or from the gases. An overall single-step soot formation model [13] based on the total volatile concentration was used thus a single transport equation is solved for the soot mass fraction, as described in [6]. The constants used are applicable for the formation of soot from an aromatic precursor. The rate of combustion of the soot particles was assumed to be governed by the Magnussen equation [14]. 2.3. Turbulence model Flow elds within combustion chambers are turbulent in nature and the exact solution of the turbulent ow would be too time consuming to solve in CFD. A range of turbulence models are available that approximate solutions to the ow eld when turbulence is present. The ke turbulence models provide good solution without excessive computation time. Instead of the standard ke model, the RNG ke or the full Reynolds Stress model should be considered for ows with strong swirling motions. In this paper, the RNG model was implemented to generate realistic predictions of turbulence effects for the furnace investigated. 2.4. Discrete phase particles The motions of the fuel particles in the furnace are tracked in the Lagrangian frame of reference with the particle momentum equation. The transfer of momentum between the gas and the solid particles is thus represented using the drag coefcient CD. For most coals and the non-brous materials (palm kernel extract (PKE) and olive waste) considered in this paper the particles are almost spherical and in the case of coal they also melt and they are taken as spherical in the computation. However, some brous biomass particles (such as wood) may not be spherical and have a large aspect ratio. To allow for the effects of deviation of the shape from spherical a particle shape factor (f) was utilized. This is important to include because the shape signicantly inuences the aerodynamic behaviour of the particle. The factor (f) is dened as the ratio of the surface area of an equivalent sphere having same surface area of particle and the real particle surface area. Drag that acts on a non-spherical particle may be formulated as a function of spherical particle Reynolds number and shape factor, as discussed in Haider and Levenspiel [15].

C D 24=Re1 b1 Reb2 b3 Re=b4 Re

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L. Ma et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 24482454

b1 exp2:3288 6:4581f 2:4486f 2 b2 0:0964 0:5565f b3 exp4:9050 13:8944f 18:4222f 2 10:2599f 3 b4 exp1:4681 12:258f 20:7322f 2 15:8855f 3

4 5 6 7

dmp =dt fann fmac Ap;i qp RT 1 Y ox =M w;ox D0 R=D0 R D0 C1 T p T 1 =20:75 =dp

9 10

b1, b2, b3 and b4 are functions of the shape factor, f. A similarity between the coal and biomass sub-models was assumed, although slightly different mechanisms are involved and biomass specic constants that characterize the sub-models have been investigated and employed. Particle temperature in the furnace is governed by the convective and radiative heat transfer and the heat from char reaction. This are usually expressed as a heat balance equation as follows (8):

mp cp dT p =dt hAp T 1 T p fh dmp =dtHreac Ap ep rhR4 T p4 8

Tp and mp are the temperature and mass of the particle, respectively. Because of the relatively narrow range of coals used here, single values were used for coal properties including coal density of 1400 kg m3 and specic heat of 1.68 J kg1 K1. 2.5. Particle combustion An overall devolatilisation step was used to determine the devolatilisation of the coal particle

Coal char gases tar

R1

The yields of gases and tars combined are known as the volatile matter (VM). A number of the devolatilisation network codes have previously been examined and on this basis we have used the FGDVC and the FG-Biomass codes to determine the devolatilisation of coal and biomass, respectively [16]. A two-step reaction mechanism was used for volatile combustion and the eddy dissipation model used to couple turbulence and chemical reactions. The homogeneous volatile reactions, (R2) and (R3), are followed by heterogeneous char combustion, (R4) and (R5):

T1 is the temperature in the medium, Yox is the species concentration of oxidizer, D0 (10) is the bulk diffusion coefcient, Mw,ox is the molecular weight of oxidant species and Ap,i is the specic internal area of the char particle. The chemical rate R , is explicitly expressed in terms of the intrinsic chemical and pore diffusion rate. Details regarding the calculation of the chemical rate (including swelling caused by vitrinite components) are given in [6]. For biomass, an intrinsic char combustion model was used in a similar way to that for coal combustion. The rate of biomass char combustion is slighter higher because the carbon has a less ordered structure. The other corrections used for coal char were not applied to biomass. During the investigation into biomass ignition, it was found that the amount of moisture within the biomass can have a large effect on the time to ignition. Moisture in the coal or biomass can be accounted for within CFD models by including evaporation of water from the fuel particle. For a 1 mm biomass particle heated at 2200 K, the time to ignition increased from 0.0076 s for moisture content of 5%, to 0.0264 s for a moisture content of 25% thus taking 3.5 longer to reach ignition temperature than for a low moisture particle; due to heating of water within the particle prior to ignition. The dimension of the particle is also important with respect to heating up times, doubling the size appears to double the time to ignition and obviously for all particle sizes, the higher the temperature of the environment during heating the faster the time to ignition. A decrease in temperature from 2200 to 1500 K causes a threefold increase in time to ignition. In coalair combustion, oxygen plays the role of the dominant oxidant. There are studies regarding the charCO2 and charH2O gasication reaction in literature [1921]. The important reactions may be simplied via a global form to:

Cs CO2 g $ 2COg Cs H2 Og ! COg H2 g COg H2 Og $ CO2 g H2 g

R6 R7 R8

Volatiles O2 mCO nH2 O CO 0:5O2 CO2 Cchar 0:5O2 CO CO 0:5O2 CO2

R2 R3 R4 R5

For co-ring the same models are used but there are additional factors in the case of biomass relating to the nature of the biomass particles, including issues surrounding the choice of heat capacity and emissivity for biomass. Larger biomass particles generally follow the same combustion laws as coal particles. The char combustion sub-model is based on Smiths intrinsic model [17]. For coal chars this model was modied by including a variable char surface area sub-model together with char annealing effects based on the Suuberg [18] annealing model. The overall char reaction is a function of particle temperature, surface area, chemical reaction rate, and oxygen concentration and diffusivity. It is assumed that the oxygen order of the surface reaction is unity under the conditions studied. The effective surface reaction rate includes the effects of both bulk diffusion and chemical reaction rates. Coefcients can be used to modify the reaction rate for the effect of annealing and maceral content (fann and fmac, respectively). Discussion regarding the formulation of the coefcients is presented in preceding work [6]. Thus intrinsic char combustion rate can be expressed as (9):

The reaction (R8) takes place in gas phase. In comparison to the char reaction with oxygen, gasication reactions with CO2 and steam are slower and more dependent on temperature. Since in coalair combustion heterogeneous CCO2 and CH2O reactions do not play a major role, the inuence of CO2H2O on char reactivity was ignored in this study. Studies of processes where the mass fraction of CO2 is signicantly higher in the combustion zone have indicated that neglecting the effect of CO2/H2O on the char reactivity will lead to inaccurate predictions. It is also postulated that the H2O reaction with char may have an inhibiting effect on the char CO2 gasication reaction. 2.6. The rates and yields of the coal and biomass decomposition products In the case of the coals, the values for devolatilisation rate constants Ad and Ed, for the overall rst order step obtained from previous studies [22] on devolatilisation network codes were used. The devolatilisation rate constant parameters for the release of tar, gas and total volatiles for the four coals were calculated by FG-DVC [6,22]. Average values for the coals, leads to an activation energy E of 230 kJ mol1 and a pre-exponential factor A of 4.2 1014 s1.The test coals used in this study are similar [23] in nature to those discussed in [6] and consequently the above value was used for all the coals in this study.

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The reaction rates of biomass have been widely studied using TGA or drop tube reactors, but there is little direct experimental information on their behaviour in furnace ames where the heating-up rate is important. A rst order kinetic rate model has been widely used for all biomass materials. Values of A = 6 1013 s1 and E = 2.5 108 J kg mol1 have been used and are based on values previously used for the pf wood [16]. Small variations in the pre-exponential factor had only a small effect. In the devolatilisation model, particles are assumed to be spherical and thermally thin and the kinetic expression rate for the biomass (and the coals) is only applicable in this case. The Biot Number (Bi) determines whether the particles are thermally thin. The regime can be dened as Bi < 1 and effectively that means particles of about 250 lm are thermally thin [24]. From particle size measurements by electron microscopy it is found that some biomass particles may fall outside that category. The biomass volatile yields used are given in Table 2, and were based on the measured laboratory value of VM and are for the wood and Miscanthus, measured values are compared to those predicted using the FG-Biomass program. Video images were examined to provide estimations of ratio of ame zone radius to particle radius for the suspended biomass particle as it burns, the ratio provides conrmation of the amount of volatiles associated with the devolatilisation of the biomass particles under ame conditions. The unburned carbon in ash is in part determined by the amount of char produced at the devolatilisation stage. Denition of the physical conditions at which devolatilisation takes place is therefore an important issue and based on our earlier studies [22] the conditions are taken to be 105 K s1 to a temperature of 1773 K in 150 ms. The yields of volatiles (char is the remainder) for the coals were calculated by FG-DVC using the coal composition and the above conditions and these are given in Table 2. 2.7. Pollutant formation The NOx model used in this work incorporates fuel-NO, thermal, and prompt mechanisms previously used in coal combustion simulations [6,25,26]. The model assumes that the fuel-N content of the volatiles, soot and char are converted to HCN and subsequently react to give NO or N2.The key issue is knowledge of the partitioning of the nitrogen between these products. The devolatilisation network code FG-DVC was used to derive the values. The steps employed in the NOx model are given in detail in [6]. The biomass calculation of NO employs a method previously used [27] and it is assumed that the ratio of NO produced via HCN and NH3 routes is 1:3. The fuel-N from biomass is in the form of both amino acids and heterocyclic compounds. NO can be formed from the former via the HCN intermediate by the De Soete fuel-N mechanism. The fuel-N in amino acids can be converted into either HCN and NH3, which after further reactions become NO [27]. In general, woods contain about 7090% protein and amino acids and this is a reasonable assumption for Miscanthus too, the same assumption is made for other biomass types, hence due to the amount of proteins and amino acids in biomass, both routes are considered.

xed at a value of 157 kg h1 with a coal ow rate to give an approximately 0.5 MW thermal rating. The ratios of the primary to secondary to tertiary air ows were typically 1:0.75:2.7. The combustion chamber was provided with a number of ports for radiation measurements. Gas and carbon in ash samples were made at the exit of the furnace. 4. Simulation results Computational simulation of the furnace was performed using a commercial CFD code, FLUENT version 6.3. The code permits a number of user-dened sub-routines and this facility was exploited here as detailed above. The furnace geometry uses $300,000 computational grid cells which are adequate for this calculation and is shown in Fig. 1. Information on the particle size distribution, the RosinRammler parameters, was available for each coal studied. Ten particle diameter ranges have been used for the computations presented ranging from 6 to 300 lm with a mean particle diameter of 40 lm. The pulverised coal was injected some distance upstream of the burner mouth permitting stratication of the coal particles in the burner. To correctly represent the swirling ow in the burner and the furnace, swirling blades were resolved in the computational mesh, which resulted in signicant increases running and convergence times. 4.1. Fuel properties The properties of the coal and biomass are given in Table 1. The data are presented in an as received form and were used to derive the quantities required by FG-DVC and CFD code. A van Krevelen plot indicated the properties of the fuel in relation to other commonly used fuels [23]. The milled biomass samples vary considerably depending on the type of biomass. The samples of milled Miscanthus, olive waste, wood and PKE provided were examined and photographs of these are shown in an earlier BCURA report [23]. The mixtures of biomass and the coals present complex issues in the denition of the size distribution used as input for the CFD model. The size distributions can however be handled adequately by the CFD model but there is an issue about the larger sizes of the wood and Miscanthus. The presence of larger irregular sized biomass particles impacts the particle reactivity and aerodynamic behaviour. 4.2. Comparison of experimental and computed results for gascoigne wood coal The rst set of simulations and experiments were undertaken using a raw coal, Gascoigne Wood, the properties are well known and which has been used in a series of trials in the past. The objective of these simulations is to test the accuracy of the CFD coal combustion model. The choice of the turbulence model and the

3. Experimental CTF facility Experimental results from a triple-staged, low-NOx, wall-red swirl burner of RWE npower were used to validate the CFD model. The main combustion air is split between the secondary and tertiary registers and was heated to 434 and 529 K, respectively. Pulverised coal of a known particle size distribution was fed to the burner by a feeder, via an air-line where the primary air was heated to a temperature of 325 K. The primary air ow rate was

Fig. 1. Computational mesh used in CFD model.

2452 Table 1 Coal and biomass properties BS method (% as received). Coal Inherent moisture ash VM FC C H N S Cl K GCV MJ/kg NCV MJ/kg Gascoigne Wood 4.00 17.74 27.48 50.78 63.99 4.21 1.36 1.112 0.05 26.47 25.44 Russian 5.56 12.15 36.19 65.42 1.54 0.44

L. Ma et al. / Fuel 88 (2009) 24482454

South African 5.47 12.15 30.01 67.01 1.56 0.48

PKE 9.22 3.9 80.26 6.62 44.91 2.43 0.22

Olive waste 6.41 7.96 64.83 20.8 46.42 5.70 1.08 0.13

Milled wood 7.79 2.4 77.76 12.05 47.51 5.92 0.32 0.005 0.4 18.61

Miscanthus 8.42 5.45 69.57 16.56 42.81 5.34 0.50 0.08

26.83

26.75

18.72

18.60

24.93

Table 2 Volatile yields BS method (wt%, daf) for the coals and biomass studied in the project. (a) Provided by Stephenson, (b) CRE data at 1350 C [30] and (c) calculated from [31,32]. Coal Gascoigne Wood Russian South African Biomass Milled wood PKE Olive Miscanthus VM (daf) 35.11 43.43 37.64 VM (daf) 86.58 93.13 75.71 80.80 Calculated (FG-DVC) 55.1 58.1 54.75 Calculated (FG-Biomass) 90.91 84.80 Value given by RWE npower 55.47 (a) 57.569.5 (c) 48.960.2 (c) Value given by RWE npower 76.34 85.54

Fig. 2. (a) View of the contours of static temperature for Gascoigne Wood coal and (b) ame attachment detail for Gascoigne Wood coal.

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Fig. 3. (a) Photograph of ame and (b) measured temperature eld of [28,29] reproduced with permission, red 1650 C, yellow 1580 C and blue/green 1450 C. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this gure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

devolatilisation model determine the ame stability (ame holding) and the ame shape. The general view of the simulated ame in the furnace is shown in Fig. 2a and the detailed near-burner structure in Fig. 2b. A photograph of this ame provided by RWE npower is shown in Fig. 3a. There is good agreement on the position of ame attachment, ignition, and ame shape. The ame shape was determined using a densitometer to obtain a quantitative measurement of the ame shape and intensity as a function of the distance from the ame. The expansion angles are the same as is the general ame shape. There was experimental data available from RWE npower for this ame on the incident ux to the furnace wall, and there was information available from related

investigations [28,29] on ame temperatures measurements. This information was compared with our computed data. With respect to the predicted temperatures, there is reasonably good agreement with actual temperatures (for a similar coal, not Gascoigne Wood) shown by comparing Figs. 2b and 3b. Information was provided by RWE npower on the radiant uxes in the furnace obtained using a Medtherm heat ux transducer (H 201, optical range 0.155 lm, accuracy 3%). These results are shown in Fig. 4 together with the computed values. A close match was not found between the measured and predicted values. There are a number of possible factors that may contribute to the inaccuracies;

800.0 700.0

Surface Incident Radiation, kW/m2

600.0 500.0 400.0 300.0 200.0 100.0 0.0

Measurement

CFD 4 4.5

0.5

1.5

2.5

3.5

Axial Distance from the Quarl Face, m

Fig. 4. Surface incident radiation measurements and computation (Gascoigne Wood) as a function of distance from the burner.

Table 3 Comparison of simulation data and measured data. Fuel Gascoigne Wood coal Russian coal Russian/PKE S. African coal S. A. coal/wood (20%th) S. A. coal/Miscanthus (20%th) S. A. coal/Olive waste (15%th) Calc NO ppm (dry) 300 296 316 292 288 250 276 Measured NO ppm (dry) 325 325 321 312 319 242 230 Calc C in ash (Mass%) 1.35 1.29 3.5 5.80 6.74 4.96 0.56 Measured C in ash (Mass%) 3.0 3.4 4.8 4.785 5.9 7.11 3.16 Calculated exit T (K) 1606 1578 1612 1620 1541 1574 1603 Measured exit T (K) 1597 1407 1488 1424 1527 1470 1539

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(a) Accuracy of calculation of absorption and emission by combustion gases within the furnace. A gray approximation of the RTE is used, the absorption coefcient is highly dependent on wavenumber and errors may be introduced by the gray approximation. (b) Simplications to the furnace geometry required to establish acceptable computation times. (c) Devolatilisation parameters may be incorrect causing ame properties to be incorrectly modelled and affecting heat ux calculations. (d) Incorrect measurement of the radiant ux near the burner; there is some evidence that similar effects have been observed in furnace measurements in other research institutions possibly due to the complex geometry where the burner enters the furnace. (e) Simplication to scattering properties may have a large effect on the surface ux, especially in the burner region. Further improvements to radiative properties are being examined and it is hoped that better agreement will be found to calculated values. The comparison between calculated and measured values of NO, carbon in ash and gas exit temperature is shown in Table 3. 5. Discussion and conclusion A number of calculations have been performed and model predictions have been compared with the available measurement data and experimental observations. It proves that it is possible to predict the behaviour of the biomass in the coal ame. A major inference is that devolatilisation is the process responsible for the major release of mass, and the values used, together with the correct handling of the associated uid ow and heat transfer processes are vital. There are considerable uncertainties in the absolute values of devolatilisation rates and yields under the heating conditions that prevail in this study. It is concluded that the non-spherical wood particles burn rapidly for all sizes up to 1 mm long studied here and the rate is determined by the size, shape and drag coefcient of the particles. The biomass particles are heterogeneous and certain slower burning particles do not burn out completely especially if larger than 0.5 mm in diameter and these particles preferentially fall to the bottom of the furnace. The results of modelling the CTF with a single coal, Gascoigne Wood, displayed reasonable agreement with the experimental results were obtained although there is still some uncertainty about the radiation data. It is our intention to revisit the issue of radiation modelling in a future project. The coal and biomass models produced a satisfactory prediction of the combustion properties. It has been possible to deal with complex particle sizes and shapes in a reasonable manner. Attention has been drawn to the importance of accurate data on the specic heats of the coals and in particular of the biomass particles. Computations of NOx were respectable as were the calculations of the unburned carbon in ash, although greater sophistication is required to account for different fuel types (agricultural residues versus energy crops and wood) and this is being addressed by current research under the SuperGen-Bioenergy project. Acknowledgements We are grateful RWE npower for information obtained on their Combustion Test facility at Didcot. We are extremely grateful to Dr. Peter Stephenson at RWE npower for information and helpful discussions. We would like to thank BCURA for the award of the

research grant that provided funding for this project and to SuperGen-Bioenergy for useful information. References
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