The aim of this work was to investigate the heat and mass transfer during thermal decomposition of a single solid fuel particle. The problem regards the pyrolysis process which occurs in the absence of oxygen in the first stage of fuel oxidation. Moreover, the mass transfer during heating of the solid fuels is the basic phenomenon in the pyrolysis-derived alternative fuels (gas, liquid and solid phase) and in the gasification process which is focused on the generation of syngas (gas phase) and char (solid phase). Numerical simulations concern pyrolysis process of a single solid particle which occurs as a consequence of the particle temperature increase. The research was aimed at an analysis of the influence of particle physical properties on the devolatilization process. In the mathematical modeling the fuel grain is treated as an ideal sphere which consists of porous material (solid and gaseous phase), so as to simplify the final form of the partial differential equations. Assumption that the physical properties change only in the radial direction, reduces the partial derivatives of the angular coordinates. This leads to obtaining the equations which are only the functions of the radial coordinate. The model consists of the mass, momentum and energy equations for porous spherical solid particle heated by the stream of hot gas. The mass source term was determined in the wide range of the temperature according to the experimental data. The devolatilization rate was defined by the Arrhenius formula. The results of numerical simulation show that the heating and devolatilization time strongly depend on the physical properties of fuel. Moreover, proposed model allows to determine the pyrolysis process direction, which is limited by the equilibrium state.
The paper presents the algorithms for a flue gas/water waste-heat exchanger with and without condensation of water vapour contained in flue gas with experimental validation of theoretical results. The algorithms were used for calculations of the area of a heat exchanger using waste heat from a pulverised brown coal fired steam boiler operating in a power unit with a capacity of 900 MWe. In calculation of the condensing part, the calculation results obtained with two algorithms were compared (Colburn-Hobler and VDI algorithms). The VDI algorithm allowed to take into account the condensation of water vapour for flue gas temperatures above the temperature of the water dew point. Thanks to this, it was possible to calculate more accurately the required heat transfer area, which resulted in its reduction by 19 %. In addition, the influence of the mass transfer on the heat transfer area was taken into account, which contributed to a further reduction in the calculated size of the heat exchanger - in total by 28% as compared with the Colburn-Hobler algorithm. The presented VDI algorithm was used to design a 312 kW pilot-scale condensing heat exchanger installed in PGE Belchatow power plant. Obtained experimental results are in a good agreement with calculated values.
Heat transfer is an irreversible process. This article defines the entropy increment as a measure of energy degradation in heat transfer realized in typical surface heat exchangers. As an example of the proposed entropy increase method, presented below are the calculations for heat exchangers working in a typical Clausius-Rankine cycle. The entropy increase in such exchangers inevitably leads to increased fuel consumption and, as a further consequence, to increased carbon dioxide emission.
The characteristic of nano sized particles mass flux conditions are engaged in this investigation. Here we assume that the nano sized particle flux is zero and the nano sized particle fraction arranged itself on the boundary layer. With this convincing and revised relation, the features of Buongiorno relation on three-dimensional flow of Carreau fluid can be applied in a more efficient way. The governing partial differential equations of continuity, momentum, energy and concentration equations which are transmitted into set of pair of nonlinear ordinary differential equations utilizing similar transformations. The numeric solutions are acquired by engaging the bvp4c scheme, which is a finite-difference code for solving boundary value problems. A parametric study is accomplished to demonstrate the impact of Prandtl number,Weissenberg numbers, radiation parameter, chemical reaction parameter, thermophoresis parameter, Brownian motion parameter and Lewis number on the fluid velocity, temperature and concentration profiles as well skin friction coefficient, Nusselt number and Sherwood number within the boundary layer. From this we find the way in which magnetic parameter contributes to the increase in local skin fraction, and the decrease in the Nusselt and Sherwood numbers in these cases. The effects of the velocity temperature and concentration profile are obtained and presented graphically.