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A Model of A Rotary Kiln Incinerator Including Processes Occurring
A Model of A Rotary Kiln Incinerator Including Processes Occurring
A Model of A Rotary Kiln Incinerator Including Processes Occurring
a(z; t)
2
; (2)
S
s
(z; t)
pN(z; t)D
3
p
(z; t)
6(1 o
s
)
: (3)
2.2.3. Denition of the bed enthalpy
The enthalpy of the bed is computed by the following
formulae (4) using the equivalent waste composition.
H
s
(z; t)y
moist
(z; t)
h
0
f;H
2
O
(T
ref
)
g
T
T
ref
Cp
H
2
O
(T) dT
y
vol
(z; t)
X
No Comp
k1
y
k
h
0
f;k
(T
ref
)
g
T
T
ref
Cp
k
(T) dT
y
C
(z; t)
h
0
f;C
(T
ref
)
g
T
T
ref
Cp
C
(T) dT
y
ash
(z; t)
h
0
f;ash
(T
ref
)
g
T
T
ref
Cp
ash
(T) dT
: (4)
2.2.4. Balance equations
2.2.4.1. Enthalpy.
(1o
s
)
@(r
s
S
s
H
s
)
@t
(1o
s
)U
s
@(r
s
S
s
H
s
)
@z
(8
gas
8
wall
m
dry
H
H
2
O
m
pyro
H
vol
)L; (5)
Fig. 2. Volatile composition of the equivalent waste (mass fraction).
Fig. 3. Geometrical variables used in the model.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 816
H
H
2
O
(z; t)
h
0
f;H
2
O
(T
ref
)
g
T
s
(z; t)
T
ref
Cp
H
2
O
(T) dT
; (6)
H
vol
(z; t)
X
No Comp
k1
y
k
h
0
f;k
(T
ref
)
g
T
s
(z; t)
T
ref
Cp
k
(T) dT
D
r
H
pyro
: (7)
2.2.4.2. Mass. Because of the density modication
induced by the drying step on the one hand, and the
diameter modication induced by the pyrolysis step on
the other hand, two equations are derived from the mass
balance:
(1o
s
)r
s
@S
s
@t
(1o
s
)U
s
r
s
@S
s
@z
m
pyro
L; (8)
(1o
s
)S
s
@r
s
@t
(1o
s
)U
s
S
s
@r
s
@z
m
dry
L: (9)
These processes are computed simultaneously in this
model.
2.2.4.3. Particle concentration.
(1o
s
)
@N
@t
(1o
s
)U
s
@N
@z
: (10)
2.2.5. Equivalent waste content equations
In this part, equations governing the evolution of
moisture, volatile, unburned carbon and ashes are
derived:
y
moist
(z; t)1
r
s;0
(t)(1 y
moist;0
(t))
r
s
(z; t)
; (11)
y
C
(z; t)
r
s;0
(t)y
C;0
(t)D
3
p;0
(t)
r
s
(z; t)D
3
p
(z; t)
; (12)
y
ash
(z; t)
r
s;0
(t)y
ash;0
(t)D
3
p;0
(t)
r
s
(z; t)D
3
p
(z; t)
; (13)
y
moist
(z; t)y
vol
(z; t)y
C
(z; t)y
ash
(z; t)1: (14)
2.2.6. Drying and pyrolysis uxes
Drying is supposed to be heat transfer limited, that is
to say, the heat it receives from the gaseous phase
controls the drying process:
m
dry
(z; t)
8
gas
(z; t) 8
wall
(z; t)
L
v
: (15)
Pyrolysis is assumed to be kinetically limited:
m
pyro
pD
2
p
(z; t)N(z; t)
L(z; t)
k
p
exp
E
a
RT
s
(z; t)
: (16)
2.2.7. Boundary conditions
The value of the relevant variables must be assigned at
the inlet of the furnace:
T
s
(0; t)T
ref
; (17)
r
s
(0; t)r
s;0
; (18)
D
p
(0; t) D
p;0
; (19)
N(0; t)
6Q
w
(t)
pr
s;0
D
3
p;0
U
s
(t)
: (20)
2.3. Results
The model for the bed has been introduced in the
software gPROMS
TM
and this part shows some typical
results, given the kiln geometry and the operating
conditions of the furnace.
Before running the model with gPROMS
TM
, the heat
flux received from the gaseous phase is required.
Because this variable is to be computed through CFD,
only a guess of its shape can be approximated at the
initialisation step.
Fig. 4 shows the value of this approximated heat flux.
Some typical results of the simulations, for example,
drying and pyrolysis fluxes (Fig. 5) as well as the content
of the bed (Fig. 6) are presented when steady-state has
been reached.
From Fig. 5, it is shown that as drying is processed,
the volatile content slightly increases before decreasing
during pyrolysis. More precisely, Fig. 6 shows the
superficial mass flux of water and also of volatile
matter. The complete drying of the material is reached
near the middle of the kiln. The pyrolysis reaction
occurs within the same space (about 6 m) but the
subsequent mass flux is much more important than the
drying one.
3. CFD modelling
In the gaseous phase, several physical and chemical
processes occur (turbulence, combustion, buoyancy, and
radiation). This part of the paper deals with the manner
in which the simulation of these processes is achieved
using Fluent
TM
5.3 software. First of all, a generic
geometry of an incinerator including the rotary kiln
and the post combustion chamber is depicted. Some
elements relative to the meshing of this geometry are
then discussed. In the second part, the model used by the
CFD software, which takes into account the relevant
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 817
physical and chemical processes, is presented. Finally,
some typical results are shown.
3.1. Geometry description
Because the combustion of the volatile matter pro-
cesses, not only in the rotary kiln, but also in the post
combustion chamber, the two parts of the furnace have
been set in the model. The choice that has been made
here consists of dealing with generic geometry. Fig. 7
depicts this geometry with its characteristic lengths.
The mesh of the whole domain includes tetrahedrons,
hexahedrons, prisms and wedges. The total number of
used nodes is 260,000 and Fig. 8 shows the details of the
kiln surface mesh.
Because the result of the pyrolysis process is a
decrease in the diameter of the burning particles, and
because of the shape of the mass flow rate of the
volatiles, the surface of the bed is not a flat plane. Thus,
the exact modelling would require having this shape as
the geometrical boundary of the CFD model. Moreover,
as iterations between gPROMS
TM
and Fluent
TM
are
going to be performed, this shape is going to be
modified, requiring a new meshing scheme at each
iteration. Because this process would be highly CPU
time consuming, and because it would render the
automation of the exchange process impossible, we
have supposed that this shape was not affected by the
gaseous flow-field, and therefore, we have used an
average flat surface for the geometrical boundary of
the CFD model. This plane has been set in order to
correspond to the height of the bed at the beginning and
the end of the kiln.
3.2. The CFD model
This model must include all the relevant physical
phenomena occurring within the gaseous phase:
. Turbulence
. Chemical species transport and reaction
. Interaction between turbulence and combustion
. Heat transfer (radiation)
Fig. 4. Guess heat ux introduced into the gPROMS
TM
model.
Fig. 5. Composition of the bed in steady state operation.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 818
Describing how this modelling is performed within the
CFD package is not the purpose of this paper. We will
only give its main trends. Turbulence modelling is
achieved using the two equations k /o model, which
allows for the computation of the turbulent viscosity
and thus the Reynolds stress tensor. Using turbulent
Schmidt and Prandtl number, consequent turbulent
diffusivities are then derived and introduced into the
species and enthalpy transport equations. Because of the
thermal level reached within the furnace (/1000 K) all
Fig. 6. Supercial mass uxes of drying and pyrolysis.
Fig. 7. Geometry used in the Fluent
TM
model.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 819
species are supposed to be in chemical equilibrium once
they have been mixed. Interaction between turbulence
and combustion is taken into account by using a
probability density function. Heat transfer by radiation
is computed using the P-1 model (the simplest case of
the P-N model, which is based on the expansion of the
radiation intensity I into an orthogonal series of
spherical harmonics) together with a local absorption
coefficient based on CO
2
and H
2
O concentration.
Setting the bed boundary condition of the CFD
model with the profile given in Fig. 6 and the excess
air to a value of 40%, Fig. 9 shows the temperature
profile inside the furnace as a typical result of the CFD
computation. Fig. 10 shows the subsequent radiation
heat flux received by the bed.
4. Coupling of CAPE and CFD tools
4.1. Denition of the coupling
The coupling, which is performed here, is of a
boundary condition type. More precisely, each
gPROMS
TM
iteration requires the heat flux as input
Fig. 8. Details of the kiln surface mesh.
Fig. 9. Proles of temperature inside the furnace, given the volatile and drying proles of Fig. 6 and an excess air of 40%.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 820
while Fluent
TM
iteration requires the water vapour
(drying) and volatiles (pyrolysis) mass fluxes.
Because the bed model is only one dimensional, the
mass flux of volatile matter predicted is one dimen-
sional. Nevertheless, because the CFD model is fully
three dimensional, it requires a two dimensional profile.
In the same way, this model yields a two dimensional
profile for the incident radiation, where the bed model
only requires a one dimensional specific heat flux. Thus
there is a need for extrapolation and interpolation in
order to share data.
The extrapolation has been performed assuming that,
in the width of the bed, the mass flux of the volatiles was
balanced by the depth of the bed. At a given z location,
the total mass flow-rate of volatiles is distributed, over
the cross section of the bed, corresponding to the bed
depth. More precisely, this means that the volatiles
velocity component, which is perpendicular to the bed
surface, is directly proportional to the bed depth at a
given z location. This operation is performed using a
Matlab
TM
routine. Fig. 11 depicts the basis of this
operation. The interpolation scheme used to feed the
bed model consists only of averaging of the incident
radiation at every axial position, over the width of the
bed. Fig. 10 shows a typical result of this procedure.
4.2. Computing, data exchange and convergence
Because convergence of the process may require
several iterations, software has been built. Basically,
this Java
TM
program (Fig. 12) sequentially executes the
different routines and programs involved in the process,
writes the exchange files and checks for the global
convergence. This one is checked by the help of four
criteria which are defined as the following:
. Total mass flow rate residual
. Local mass flow rate residual
. Total heat residual
. Local heat residual
For each of these quantities, the residue is computed as
following:
R
f
max
j
f
k
f
k1
f
k
j
; (21)
where f denotes the quoted quantity and k the current
iteration. It has been assumed that convergence was
reached once all of these residues reached below 10
3
.
4.3. Results
The first set of results, which is presented here, deals
with self-incineration. That is to say, no extra-thermal
power is added to the system in order to burn the waste.
As an illustration of the computation performed, Fig. 13
shows the evolution of the shared variables (specific
mass flux of the volatiles and specific heat flux of the
incident radiation) as a function of the current iteration.
As the computation proceeds, the devolatilization zone
shifts from the left to right of the kiln. Then, at iteration
level 5, computation is stopped because the whole
amount of volatile matter is no longer released from
the residual waste, which reflects the faulty working of
Fig. 10. Specic heat ux received by the bed, given the volatile and drying proles of Fig. 7 and an excess air of 40%.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 821
the kiln. Moreover, following the evolution of the shape
of the curve representative of the incident radiation, it is
obvious that less and less volatile matter is released
inside the bed. This means that, given the particular
geometry and the working parameters (Table 1), self-
incineration is impossible.
Thus, in order to obtain converging results, the choice
was made to add an extra burner on the front side of the
kiln. That is to say, given the same geometry and
working parameters, an extra feed of methane has been
added to the system. To simplify, and in order to reduce
the intensive CPU requirements, it has been assumed
that the working of the burner and the burning of the
volatile matter were totally independent. Therefore, one
CFD simulation was performed with the total amount
of air required (methane/volatile matter) but without
any volatile matter being released from the bed. Fig. 14
depicts the results of such a simulation in terms of the
contours of the temperature within the kiln, and in
terms of the subsequent supplemental radiation heat
flux received by the bed, for a 2 MW extra burner.
Once this extra incident radiation has been computed,
it can be used in the overall computation scheme, using
a technique of superimposition. Indeed, the choice has
been made to add this supplemental subsequent radia-
tion (Fig. 14) to the one computed by the CFD software,
in the Converti_fg.m subroutine (Fig. 12), at each
iteration. Fig. 15 shows the results of such a manipula-
tion. Given the criteria defined in Section 4.2, conver-
gence has been reached at the 10th iteration. The small
amount of heat received by the bed on the left part of
the kiln is sufficient to promote drying and the begin-
ning of pyrolysis. Then, once volatile matter is released
not too far from the entrance of the kiln, its subsequent
combustion is sufficient to ensure complete devolatiliza-
tion of the waste.
5. Conclusion
This paper has described one of the possible coupling
between gPROMS
TM
and Fluent
TM
. It has demonstrated
that applied to a rotary kiln incinerator, such a coupling
was possible and that it was able to give insights into the
running of the process. More precisely, it has been
shown that, given the geometry of the whole incinerator
and a model waste composed of 50% of wood, 40% of
cardboard and 5% of PVC (on a weight basis), self
incineration was not possible. This can be attributed to
the smaller quantity of the incident radiation received by
the bed of waste, which insufficiently ensures its
complete pyrolysis within the kiln. Subsequently, it has
been demonstrated that adding an extra burner, fed with
methane, was a possible solution in order to achieve the
complete pyrolysis of waste within the kiln. Our model is
then able to predict the combustion of the volatile
matter within the incinerator as well as the subsequent
radiation received by its walls, and the thermal and
chemical species contours. This data may be very
interesting in order to check for the efficient running
of the process and then possible enhancements in the
design of the furnace.
Fig. 11. Illustration of the extrapolation scheme used to feed the CFD model with the result of the bed one.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 822
Rotary kiln incineration is only one application of the
coupling of the boundary condition type. Indeed, a
general methodology and a program able to execute the
sequence automatically have been built. The latter could
easily be applied to other processes where CFD results
should be coupled with gPROMS
TM
results by the
Fig. 13. Illustration of the convergence for the working parameters of Table 1.
Fig. 12. Sequence executed by the iterative program and exchange les.
F. Marias / Computers and Chemical Engineering 27 (2003) 813/825 823
intermediate of a boundary condition (heat exchanger,
cement kiln, grate incinerators . . .).
Acknowledgements
This study has been performed in the Centre for
Process System Engineering, Imperial College, London.
Thus, the author would like to thank the head of the
department Professor Sandro Macchietto for his wel-
come at the centre and for his numerous advice. The
author also thanks Professor Costas Pantelides, Dr
Lakis Liberis and Fabrizzio Bezzo for their suport and
help. Thanks also to Graham Stuart, the system
administrator of the Centre, for his help.
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Working parameters of the process
Mass flow-rate of model waste Q
w
/1.7 kg s
1
Input size of waste particles D
p,0
/0.05 m
Input density of waste particles r
s,0
/750 kg m
3
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card
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