Any complete CFD model of pulverised coal-fired boiler needs to consider ash deposition phenomena. Wall boundary conditions (temperature and emissivity) should be temporally corrected to account for the effects of deposit growth on the combustion conditions. At present voluminous publications concerning ash related problems are available. The current paper presents development of an engineering tool integrating deposit formation models with the CFD code. It was then applied to two tangentially-fired boilers. The developed numerical tool was validated by comparing it with boiler evaporator power variation based on the on-line diagnostic system with the results from the full CFD simulation.

In this work problems associated with requirements related to pollution emissions in compliance with more restrictive standards, low-emission combustion technology, technical realization of the monitoring system as well as algorithms allowing combustion process diagnostics are discussed. Results of semi-industrial laboratory facility and industrial (power station) research are presented as well as the possibility of application of information obtained from the optical fibre monitoring system for combustion process control. Moreover, directions of further research aimed to limit combustion process environmental negative effects are presented.