Accepted Manuscript

Influence of increased primary air ratio on boiler performance in a 660MW brown

coal boiler

Zixiang Li, Zhengqing Miao, Yan Zhou, Shurong Wen, Jiangtao Li

PII: S0360-5442(18)30590-5

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.04.001

Reference: EGY 12639

To appear in: Energy

Received Date: 11 December 2017

Revised Date: 28 March 2018

Accepted Date: 01 April 2018

Please cite this article as: Zixiang Li, Zhengqing Miao, Yan Zhou, Shurong Wen, Jiangtao Li,
Influence of increased primary air ratio on boiler performance in a 660MW brown coal boiler, Energy
(2018), doi: 10.1016/j.energy.2018.04.001

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 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

1 Influence of increased primary air ratio on boiler performance in a 660MW brown coal boiler

2 Zixiang Lia, Zhengqing Miaoa, Yan Zhoub, Shurong Wenb, Jiangtao Lic

3 a. Institute of Thermal Energy Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University,

4 Shanghai 200240, People’s Republic of China

5 b. North United Power Co. Ltd, Inner Mongolia, 010000, People’s Republic of China

6 c. Shanghai Boiler Works Ltd, Shanghai 200240, People’s Republic of China

7 Abstract

8 A computational fluid dynamics model was established based on a 660MW brown coal boiler, to study the effects of

9 primary air ratio (PAR) on boiler performance. To improve model prediction, moisture content in brown coal is specially

10 considered. Confidence in the model was established by carrying out mesh independence test and validation against real

11 life data and theoretical calculations. Then it was used to simulate 10 cases with different PAR. Results show that with

12 PAR increasing from 0.325 to 0.55, overall boiler performance deteriorates and total radiative heat flux decreases by

13 35.2MW. However, the temperature distribution and heat flux in main burners region and above separated over fire air

14 region show a parabolic trend. The results indicate that boiler performance deteriorates with PAR increasing, and well

15 explains why boiler thermal load is still reduced, even if PAR is increased to maintain the drying capacity in high moisture

16 content cases. Momentum ratio of primary and secondary air is pointed out to be the main cause of this phenomenon. At

17 last, a feasible solution is proposed to raise primary air temperature, not the ratio of it, to maintain the drying capacity.

18 Therefore, the adverse effects caused by increased PAR can be avoided.

19 Keywords: Brown coal boiler, Primary air ratio, Combustion performance, Numerical simulation

20 1. Introduction

 Corresponding author. Tel: +86 21 3420 5683.

E-mail address: lizixiang617@sjtu.edu.cn
Notes: The authors declare no competing financial interest.
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21 At current consumption rate, global coal storage that can be mined will last at least 150 years and nearly 40% of it is

22 brown coal [1]. In china, the reservation of brown coal exceeds 130 billion tons, accounting for more than 13% of the

23 national total storage [2]. Generally, brown coal has some advantages like low mining cost, high volatile matter content

24 and low pollution forming elements. However, as a type of low rank coal, its features of high moisture content (MC), high

25 ash content and lower heating value significantly limit its application in power plants [3]. For example, the capacity

26 provided by large-scale lignite-fired power plants in China is lower than 3% of the national installed capacity [4]. Among

27 the above shortcomings, high MC is deemed to be the most adverse feature that results in lower power plant efficiency

28 (PPE), higher transportation costs and spontaneous combustion during storage [5][6].

29 So far, enormous works have been conducted to study the effect of MC on brown coal combustion behavior. The

30 greenhouse gases emission (CO2 for instance) was reported to be higher in brown coal boilers due to its lower boiler

31 efficiency [7][8], as a 1% increase in PPE can result in up to a 2.5% reduction in CO2 emissions [9]. Tahmasebzadehbaie

32 et al [10] reported that the emission decrement when thermal efficiency was increased, is due to less fuel consumption in

33 higher PPE condition. Tahmasebi et al [11] found the ignition of lignite particles takes more time when MC is increased

34 and the same conclusion was reported by Binner et al [12]. This was interpreted as the evaporation of water takes time and

35 the steam zone formed in the vicinity of particles inhibits the particles temperature from increasing [11]. Prationo et al [13]

36 found that the volatile flame was enlarged by the evaporated moisture and the coal flame intensity was weaker than dried

37 coal, as the volatile cloud was diluted by the evaporated water. As more high grade heat released by coal combustion was

38 absorbed by water evaporation, the overall boiler efficiency was then decreased [14]. Tian et al [15] found a slight decrease

39 in incident radiation in the main burners’ region with the increase of MC. Kurose et al [16] found that the unburned carbon

40 fraction at the furnace outlet increases with the increase of MC.

41 Considering the negative impacts of MC on brown coal combustion behavior, pre-drying technologies are used to

42 reduce water content in the raw coal. Some literatures reviewed the recent development of drying technologies [6][17][18],

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43 and many researches was conducted to investigate the improvement of PPE when pre-drying technique was employed and

44 pre-dried coal is burned. It is estimated that an optimized drying process in future brown coal power plant may increase

45 the total PPE by 4%-6% [19]. Through a theoretical model, Liu Ming et al [20] estimated that the overall PPE could be

46 raised by 1.87% when MC was pre-dried to 19.5% from 39.5%. Wang et al [21] reported that the auxiliary power can be

47 decreased by 3.8%, when MC was reduced from 40% to 25%. Xu et al [22] investigated a lignite pre-drying system

48 incorporated with a supplementary steam cycle, and found that the net PPE can be improved by 2.6% and the cost of

49 electricity can be reduced by 1.26$/MWh. Agraniotis et al [19] investigated the co-firing of raw brown coal and pre-dried

50 brown coal in a 590MW utility boiler and found that the net PPE can be increased by 5.9% when 100% pre-dried lignite is

51 fired and 1.5% when 25% pre-dried lignite is co-fired.

52 Although pre-dried coal has great advantages over the raw wet brown coal, pre-drying process consumes large amount

53 of energy [23] and may cause spontaneous ignition due to its high sensitive volatile content [3]. Besides, not all the power

54 stations were equipped with pre-drying system when they were firstly built. For those boilers without pre-drying facilities,

55 raw brown coal is directly fed into the mill system and then heated and dried in it. In the mill system, when MC is greater

56 than the design value, the energy provided by primary air (PA) cannot dry the coal particles to the design level if PA

57 temperature is remained unchanged. This results in an accumulation of pulverized coal in the mill system and consequently

58 blocks the coal pulverizing system [14]. A feasible solution is to use the air-preheating method, i.e. heat recirculation, to

59 preheating the inlet air and increase the primary air temperature [24]. However, the practical operation in power plant is to

60 raise the primary air ratio (PAR) to increase the total energy input in the mill system. This forced action causes PAR to

61 deviate from the design value, and thus alters the original aerodynamics condition and combustion performance. Several

62 researches have been conducted to investigate the influence of PAR on the combustion characteristics in boiler with swirl

63 burners [25][26][27], but few literature was focused on the direct burners. Long et al [28] investigated the influence of a

64 slightly elevated PAR on the combustion performance in a dual-circle tangential ultra-supercritical boiler, and found out

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65 that PAR had great impact on the combustion characteristics.

66 In this paper, the influence of overly increased PAR on boiler performance was studied and the decrease of boiler

67 efficiency was linked to the momentum ratio of primary air to secondary air flow. For this purpose, a computational fluid

68 dynamics (CFD) model was established on the basis of a 660MW brown coal utility boiler. The simulation cases were

69 conducted based on the operational parameters of Shangdu power plant, located in Inner Mongolia, China. The model was

70 firstly validated by comparing the simulation results with reference data, then it was used to investigate the influence of

71 PAR on coal combustion behavior and boiler performance. Results show that PAR has a significant influence on the

72 combustion behavior, a deviation of PAR will cause a deterioration of overall boiler performance. The findings find out

73 why the boiler efficiency was still reduced, even if PAR was increased to meet the requirement of drying capacity in the

74 mill system. It is pointed out that the momentum ratio of PA and secondary air (SA) is the main factor that affects the in-

75 furnace combustion behavior. The boiler performance deteriorates severely when the momentum of PA and SA are too

76 close, which should be avoided in real boiler operation. When high moisture brown coal is used, a feasible solution is

77 suggested to increase the temperature of PA, rather than the ratio of it, to meet the increasing requirement of drying capacity

78 in the mill system. So that the adverse effects of increased PAR can be avoided.

79 2. Boiler description and Computational methodology

80 2.1 Boiler configuration and operational condition

81 In this paper, the simulation domain was established based on a 660MW wall-fired brown coal utility boiler, located

82 in Inner Mongolia, China. As schematically shown in Fig.1a, the boiler was 68.5m in height with an almost square cross-

83 section of 20.0x20.3m. In the furnace roof region, platen super-heater (PSH) and rear super-heater (RSH) were also taken

84 into consideration. Heat transfer tubes were simplified into plate panels with the same area. Other convection surfaces

85 behind the furnace exit including re-heater, air-preheater, and economizer were neglected because of their negligible impact

86 on the in-furnace combustion process.

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87 As depicted in Fig.1a, PA1-PA6 were 6 sets in-service main burners (MBs) on each wall, i.e. upper main burners

88 (UMB), intermediate main burners (IMB) and lower main burners (LMB). In order to enhance the mixing of air and coal

89 particles, 9 sets of SA nozzles, i.e. SA1-SA9, were set up above and below each MB. The separated over fire air (SOFA)

90 nozzles were situated in the SOFA region. MBs and SA nozzles were wall-installed, while SOFA nozzles were mounted

91 tangentially at four corners. Detailed installation information of burners and air nozzles can be found in Fig.1b.

92 Under the boiler maximum continuous rating condition, 536.1t/h raw brown coal was consumed to produce 1913 t/h

93 steam at 25.4 MPa and 571℃. Correspondingly, the flow rate of PA and SA for the design firing case was 254.3kg/s and

94 528.2kg/s respectively. Boiler efficiency was estimated as 92.10% based on the lower heating value on a received basis.

95 Coal properties used in the simulation process were consisted with those in actual operation, as listed in Table 1. The

96 particle size distribution is modeled with the Rosin-Rammler function, which had been validated for powder size prediction

97 previously [29]. The model parameters are minimum diameter, maximum diameter, mean diameter and spread number,

98 which has a value of 10μm, 1100μm, 90μm and 1.13, respectively.

99 2.2 Boundary conditions and cases set up

100 In CFD simulation work, the boundary conditions are vital to solve a specific steady-state problem. There were mainly

101 three types boundary condition employed in this paper, namely the velocity-inlet, the pressure-outlet and the wall condition.

102 The velocity-inlet defined the way of air input, includes MBs, SA nozzles and SOFA nozzles, detailed information is given

103 in Table 2. For the gas phase, a “non-slip” boundary condition was employed on the walls [28], including furnace wall

104 (FW), PSH and RSH. Since the temperature variation of the working medium inside the heat absorbing tubes was not

105 dramatic, the wall temperature of each individual part was assumed to be a constant. According to the working medium’s

106 temperature, the temperature of FW, PSH and RSH was set to be 750K, 850K, and 893K respectively. The emissivity of

107 all walls was set to be 0.8. The domain exit was considered as a pressure-outlet with a light negative pressure of 200pa,

108 and the backflow temperature through the exit was set to be 1200K.

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109 To study the effects of PAR on boiler performance, 10 different simulation cases were conducted in this work. As

110 listed in Table 2, case 1 was the design firing condition and case 10 was the actual unfavorable firing scenario. For all

111 cases, the excess air coefficient was 1.18 and the SOFA rate was fixed to 20%. The primary air was uniformly distributed

112 to each MB (24 in total), for instance, 1.53% air was introduced into the furnace through each MB in case 1, where PAR

113 was set to be 32.5%. However, the secondary air was distributed unevenly among SA nozzles, because the area of SA2,

114 SA5 and SA8 was bigger than other SA nozzles as shown in Fig.1a. The distribution principle was to keep the air velocity

115 identical in each SA nozzles. For example in case 1, 1.82% air was injected through each large SA nozzle (12 in total), and

116 1.07 % was injected through the each small SA nozzle (24 in total). The temperature of PA and pulverized coal particles

117 was 338K while the temperature of SA and SOFA was 671K. Since the area of PA and SA wind boxes were immutable,

118 the velocity was adjusted to meet the variation of PAR, detailed information is list below.

119 2.3 Simulation methodology and models selection

120 The simulation work presented was carried out by ANSYS FLUENT, version 15.0. Appropriate sub-models were

121 selected according to the best of our knowledge, and all of them were already validated in open literature [30][31][32]. A

122 detailed description of the computational modeling was presented below.

123 2.3.1 Gas-solid two-phase flow model

124 In pulverized coal boiler, the low particle-to-gas ratio makes it ideally to be considered in an Eulerian-Lagrangian

125 approach [33]. In Eulerian-Lagrangian approach, the continuous phase is solved in the Eulerian reference frame in the same

126 manner as for single phase, and the individual discrete phase particles are tracked therein.

127 2.3.1.1 Gas phase

128 The continuous gas phase is modeled with the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations. For a three dimensional

129 steady state convection-diffusion problem, the governing equations take the following general form:

∂(𝜌𝑢𝜙) ∂(𝜌𝑣𝜙) ∂(𝜌𝑤𝜙) ∂

130 ∂𝑥
+ ∂𝑦 + ∂𝑧 = ∂𝑥 (𝛤∂𝜙∂𝑥) + ∂𝑦∂ (𝛤∂𝜙∂𝑦) + ∂𝑧∂ (𝛤∂𝜙∂𝑧) + 𝑆 (1)

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131 As shown in Table 3, depending on variable 𝜙, the above Eq. (1) presents the transport equation of continuity,

132 momentum, energy, turbulence kinetic energy and its rate of dissipation.

133 To close the Reynolds-averaged Naiver-Stokes equations, the standard k-ε model was selected because of its good

134 performance and stability [34]. In this model, two additional variables – turbulence kinetic energy (𝑘) and its rate of

2
135 dissipation (𝜀) are calculated. The turbulent viscosity 𝜇𝑡 is calculated as 𝜌𝐶𝜇𝑘 𝜀, and the model constants are 𝐶1𝜀=1.44,

136 𝐶2𝜀=1.92, 𝐶𝜇=0.09, 𝜎𝑘=1.0, 𝜎𝑠=1.3.

137 2.3.1.2 Particulate phase

138 The discrete phase model (DPM) is used to simulate the particulate phase, where the trajectory of a discrete phase

139 particle is calculated by solving the momentum equations in a Cartesian system as Eq. (2):

𝑑𝑢𝑝 18𝜇 𝐶𝐷𝑅𝑒 𝑔(𝜌𝑝 ‒ 𝜌)

140 𝑑𝑡
=
𝜌 𝑑 24
2 (𝑢 ‒ 𝑢𝑝) + 𝜌𝑝 (2)
𝑝 𝑝

141 Herein, the right side of Eq. (2) are drag force term and gravity force term, respectively. Particle Reynolds number is:

142 𝑅𝑒 = 𝜌𝑑𝑝|𝑢𝑝 ‒ 𝑢| 𝜇 (3)

143 Besides, particles dispersion caused by fluid turbulence is included by using the stochastic tracking model [35]. In

144 stochastic tracking approach, the particles turbulence dispersion is predicted by replacing the mean fluid velocity 𝑢 with

'
145 the instantaneous fluid velocity 𝑢 + 𝑢 (𝑡) in above Eq. (2) and Eq. (3).

146 2.3.2 Devolatilization model

147 When heated up, the volatile matters released from coal particles before coal combustion process. The devolatilization

148 process is simulated with the two-competing rates model proposed by Kobayashi [36], in which the devolatilizaiton rate is

149 determined by two competing rates that controls the devolatilization process in different temperature range.

Low temperature range:

‒ (𝐸1 𝑅𝑇𝑝) (4)
ℛ1 = 𝐴1𝑒

High temperature range:

‒ (𝐸2 𝑅𝑇𝑝) (5)
ℛ2 = 𝐴2𝑒

150 Then these two rates are weighted to yield an expression for the overall devolatilization rate as:

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𝑚𝑣(𝑡)
151 (1 ‒ 𝑓𝑤,0)𝑚𝑝,0 ‒ 𝑚𝑎 = 0 0 (
∫𝑡 (𝛼1ℛ1 + 𝛼2ℛ2)𝑒𝑥𝑝 ‒ ∫𝑡 (ℛ1 + ℛ2)𝑑𝑡 𝑑𝑡 ) (6)

8 ‒1 13 ‒ 1
152 The pre-exponential factors 𝐴1,𝐴2 are 9.71 × 10 𝑠 ,7.42 × 10 𝑠 , and the activation energy constant 𝐸1,𝐸2 are

5 5
153 1.93 × 10 𝑗/𝑚𝑜𝑙, 3.47 × 10 𝑗/𝑚𝑜𝑙 respectively [37]. According to the recommendation of Kobayashi et al [36], the yield

154 factor 𝛼1 is assumed as the mass fraction of volatile matter in approximate analysis, and 𝛼2 is set to be unity.

155 2.3.3 Combustion model

156 2.3.3.1 Volatile matters combustion

157 The combustion of volatile matters is modeled with an equilibrium mixture fraction – probability density function

158 model, where the instantaneous thermochemistry state of the fluid system is related to a conserved scalar quantity known

159 as the mixture fraction:

𝑍𝑖 ‒ 𝑍𝑖,𝑜𝑥
160 𝑓=𝑍 (7)
𝑖,𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 ‒ 𝑍𝑖,𝑜𝑥

161 In this model, the transport equations of density-averaged mixture fraction and its variance are solved as:

(
𝜇𝑙 + 𝜇𝑡
162
∂
∂𝑡
(𝜌𝑓 ) + ∇ ∙ (𝜌𝑢𝑓 ) = ∇ ∙ 𝜎𝑡 )
∇𝑓 + 𝑆𝑚 (8)

(
𝜇𝑙 + 𝜇𝑡
163
∂
∂𝑡
(𝜌𝑓'2 ) + ∇ ∙ (𝜌𝑢𝑓'2 ) = ∇ ∙ 𝜎𝑡
∇𝑓
'2
) + 𝐶 𝜇 ∙ (∇𝑓) ‒ 𝐶 𝜌 𝑓
𝑔 𝑡
2 𝜀 '2
𝑑 𝑘 (9)

'
164 Where 𝑓 = 𝑓 ‒ 𝑓. The model values for the constants 𝜎𝑡, 𝐶𝑔 and 𝐶𝑑 are 0.85, 2.86, and 2.0, respectively.

165 During the simulation process, the mixture fraction distribution is obtained directly by solving Eq. (8) and Eq. (9),

166 and then the values of mass fraction of each species, density and temperature can be obtained accordingly as Eq. (10):

1
167 𝜙𝑖 = ∫0𝜙𝑖(𝑓,𝐻)𝑝(𝑓)𝑑𝑓 (10)

168 2.3.3.2 Char oxidation

169 To model char oxidation, a heterogeneous reaction is assumed to occur on char surface with first-order global

170 Arrhenius rates, as listed in following reaction (I):

171 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟 + 0.5𝑂2→𝐶𝑂 (I)

172 𝐶𝑂 + 0.5𝑂2→𝐶𝑂2 (II)

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173 The rate of char combustion is described with the kinetic-diffusion single-film approach, which can be written as:

𝑑𝑚𝑝 𝜌𝑅𝑇∞𝑌𝑜𝑥 𝐷𝑜ℛ

2
174 𝑑𝑡
=‒ π𝑑𝑝 𝑀𝑤,𝑜𝑥 𝐷𝑜 + ℛ (11)

175 Where the diffusion rate coefficient 𝐷𝑜 and kinetic rate coefficient ℛ is defined as Eq. (12) and Eq. (13):
0.75

‒7
[(𝑇𝑝 + 𝑇∞) 2]
176 𝐷0 = 2.53 × 10 × 𝑑𝑝 (12)

‒ ( 𝐸
𝑅𝑇 )
𝑝
177 ℛ = 𝐶2𝑒 (13)
2 2 3
178 The pre-exponential factor 𝐶2 and the activation energy 𝐸 are 4.97 × 10 𝑘𝑔/(𝑚 ∙ 𝑠) and 8.54 × 10 𝑗/𝑚𝑜𝑙

179 respectively, as recommended in ref [38].

180 2.3.4 Heat transfer model

181 The P-1 model [39] is used to model the radiation heat transfer, in which the radiation heat flux 𝑞𝑟 is calculated as:

1
182 𝑞𝑟 =‒ 3(𝑎 + 𝜎 ) ‒ 𝐶𝜎 ∇𝐺 (14)
𝑠 𝑠

183 Where the incident radiation 𝐺 can be determined by Eq. (15):

184 ∇∙ (( ∇𝐺
3 𝑎 + 𝜎𝑠) ‒ 𝐶𝜎𝑠 ) ‒ 𝑎𝐺 + 4𝑎𝑛 𝜎𝑇 = 0 2 4
(15)

185 The emissivity of gas mixture is represent by the Weighted Sum of Gray Gases Model (WSGGM), in which the gas

186 mixture is treated as a gray body. The total emissivity and absorption coefficient are described as following:

‒ 𝜅𝑖𝑝𝑠
𝜀 = ∑𝑖 = 0𝑎𝜀,𝑖(𝑇)(1 ‒ 𝑒 )
𝐼
187 (16)

𝐽 𝑗‒1
188 𝑎𝜀,𝑖 = ∑𝑗 = 1𝑏𝜀,𝑖,𝑗𝑇 (17)

189 2.3.5 Consideration of moisture content

190 As was reported in open literatures that mentioned in the introduction part, MC has great effects on the combustion

191 performance of coal particles. So it is of great importance to take the moisture content into consideration in the simulation

192 work. In this paper, moisture content in brown coal was specially considered by specifying the species of volatile products

193 and liquid water when defining the coal inlet boundary condition. When heated up, the moisture inside coal particles will

194 firstly evaporates and then the devolatilization process begins, leaving the char and ash component in coal particles.

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195 According to the research of Bradley et al [40], the devolatilization process was finished in two steps. After the evaporation,

196 the tar component and primary volatiles were released from coal particles at first, then the tar species evolved into soot and

197 secondary volatiles. The whole process and mass fraction of each volatile species were calculated and clearly illustrated in

198 the following Fig.2.

199 The gas flow filed equations were firstly solved assuming that the coal particles were absent, which converged after

200 less than 2000 iterations. Based on the cold flow calculations, the coal combustion simulations were then carried out. The

201 convergence criterion was achieved when residuals of all parameters were below 10-5.

202 2.4 Mesh independence test and models validation

203 Predictably, a successive refinement of the mesh system will take us asymptotically towards the correct solution [41].

204 However, the computing cost increases correspondingly when the mesh system is refined. In order to make a balance

205 between the calculation accuracy and the computing cost, mesh independency is checked before the formal calculation. It

206 is conducted within four mesh systems, containing 3.27 million (#1), 3.92 million (#2), 4.53 million (#3) and 5.09 million

207 (#4) hexahedral cells respectively. Due to the relatively high flow gradient and combustion intensity in MBs’ region, mesh

208 refinement is mainly performed here. As shown in Fig.3, the distribution profile of area-weighted average velocity in MBs’

209 region was selected as the criterion of mesh quality because of its great influence on the mixing behavior and combustion

210 performance [29]. When compared with coarse mesh system #1 and #2, the velocity difference between fine mesh system

211 #3 and #4 is very small, especially in the dotted frame area. Thus we can assume that the accuracy of solution is not mesh-

212 dependent anymore when mesh system was further refined from #3 to #4 [42]. Therefore the #3 mesh system is selected

213 in the following simulation work presented.

214 The validation of this simulation model was ensured through comparing the simulation results with reference data.

215 Since backflow phenomenon may occur at the domain exit in the simulation process, parameters at the hypothetical furnace

216 exit, denoted as the data reference plane in Fig.1a, were selected to validate the model. As listed in Table 4, the superscript

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217 a presented the real-life data provided by Shangdu power plant, which were measured online when the boiler was operated

218 under extremely large primary air ratio, i.e. case 10 in this paper. Due to the slight fluctuation of online measured parameters,

219 the values presented was the average of data acquired in a long term operation. The flue gas temperature was selected

220 because it reflected the combustion performance and heat transfer process inside the furnace, and the velocity was selected

221 due to its great effects on the rear convective heating surfaces in real boiler operation, air preheater for instance. The

222 superscript b denoted the results calculated on the basis of element conservation, when the boiler was operated under design

223 case 1. For example, the mass of H2O was calculated as the summation of H2O(g) converted from the element H and those

224 evaporated from the moisture content, then it was divided by the total flus gas amount to obtain the H2O mass fraction.

225 Since H2O(g) was included in the total flue gas amount, the mass fraction of O2, H2O, CO2 presented in Table 4 was on a

226 wet basis. As can be seen that the discrepancy between CFD results and reference data is small (with 5%), so that the

227 selected models were quite acceptable.

228 On the basis of mesh independence test and model validation, a level of confidence in the current CFD model can be

229 established.

230 3. Results and discussion

231 When brown coal with higher MC is used, the pulverized coal particles cannot be heated to the design temperature,

232 even if PAR was increased to raise the drying capacity in the mill system. Thus, the temperature of primary air / pulverized

233 coal mixture (PA/PC) decreases in large PAR scenarios. According to the feedback of Shangdu power plant, the

234 temperature of PA/PC that enters the furnace through MBs is reduced to 331K, where it was designed to be 341K.

235 Meanwhile, the actual boiler thermal load is about 620MW which was expected to be 660MW. Hence, the effects of PA/PC

236 temperature on coal combustion behavior and boiler performance were examined before the influence of PAR was

237 conducted.

238 As shown in Table 5, with PA/PC temperature increasing from 328K to 343K, the flue gas temperature at the

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239 hypothetical furnace exit increases about 0.32% while the concentration of unburned char particles (UCPs) decreases by

240 0.74%. Meanwhile, the overall radiative heat flux on all heating surfaces is increased by 0.67%. It can be concluded that

241 when PA/PC temperature is increased in a small range, the combustion behavior and boiler performance are improved very

242 slightly. However, the insignificant difference of these parameters means that the PA/PC temperature is not the main cause

243 of boiler thermal load reduction. Therefore, the following parts are focused on the effects of increased PAR.

244 3.1 Combustion temperature distribution

245 3.1.1 Temperature distribution contour on the vertical and horizontal cut

246 Fig.4 and Fig.5 represents the temperature distribution contour on the vertical cut at Z=0 and on the horizontal cut at

247 Y=8.93m respectively. We can see from Fig.4 that the temperature distribution patterns are basically the same for all cases.

248 In the ash hopper zone, the temperature is very low as less coal particles is combusted here [32]. As shown in Fig.5, the

249 coal combustion occurs mainly on a tangential circle, formed by the combined effects of the impact extrusion of gas flow,

250 restriction from FW, the jet entrainment and the centrifugal force [43], the temperature in the near wall region is much

251 higher than that in the central zone. Above SOFA region, the temperature decreases gradually along the furnace height.

252 This is because the heat absorbed by FW is larger than the heat released from coal combustion, as the combustion fraction

253 decreases along the furnace height.

254 Taking the furnace as a whole, as Fig.4 depicts, the combustion temperature decreases gradually with PAR increasing.

255 However, the temperature variation is different in MBs’ region and the region above SOFA. In MBs’ region, with PAR

256 increasing continuously, the high temperature zone decreases at first and then goes up again slightly. On the contrary, as

257 indicated by the red dash line, the area size of high temperature zone above SOFA region increases when PAR is slightly

258 increased and then decreases step by step when PAR exceeds a certain value, 0.425 in this paper. This can be interpreted

259 as, when PAR is increased moderately, the combustion behavior in MBs’ region deteriorates and more unburned particles

260 are then consumed above SOFA region. So that the high temperature zone decreases in MBs’ region and increases above

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261 SOFA region. However, when PAR is further increased, the combustion performance gets improved somehow in MBs’

262 region, so that the temperature increase slightly in MBs’ region and decreases above SOFA region. Nevertheless, as shown

263 in Fig.5, although the temperature level shows a re-increase trend when PAR is overly increased, the high temperature zone

264 is spread on the furnace wall, which will result in undesired problem, like slagging and high temperature corrosion on the

265 water wall tubes.

266 3.1.2 Average temperature distribution profile along the furnace height

267 Fig.6 shows the mass-weighted average temperature distribution on the horizontal cross-section along the furnace

268 height. Owing to the alternant input of low temperature PA and SA, the average temperature profile fluctuates in MBs’

269 region. We can see that the variation of average temperature is different when PAR is in the range from 0.325 to 0.425 and

270 the range from 0.450 to 0.550. In MBs’ region, when PAR is below 0.425, the average temperature decrease evidently with

271 PAR increasing. For instance, the temperature difference between case 1 and case 5 is 144.3K at Y=16m. However, when

272 PAR continues to rise from case 6 to case 10, the temperature in MBs’ region remains stable. As the near wall temperature

273 is much higher than that in the central zone, when PAR is moderately increased from case 1 to case 5, the influence of

274 temperature decrease in the near wall region is greater than the temperature increase in central zone, so that the average

275 temperature decreases gradually. However, in case 6 to 10, the modest increase of near wall temperature is neutralized by

276 the temperature decrease in the central zone, so that the average temperature remains almost unchanged. Above SOFA

277 region, the average temperature increases from case 1 to 5, and then decreases from case 6 to 10. For example, the

278 temperature difference between case 6 and 10 is 51.6K at Y=35m. This can be attributed to that the size of high temperature

279 zone increases gradually from case 1 to case 5, as was shown in Fig.4, and then decreases from case 6 to 10.

280 The data shown in Fig 6 are used to calculate the average temperature in the intensive combustion region, where Y

281 ranges from 5 to 20m, for each case. Then the average temperature difference between case 1 and other cases is obtained

282 and shown in Table 6. We can find that when PAR exceeds 0.375, the average temperature in this region is reduced by at

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283 least 49K when compared with case 1. As the radiative intensity is in proportional to the fourth power of temperature, the

284 temperature decrease in this region will notably deteriorate the overall heat transfer process, as will be shown in Fig.7

285 3.1.3 Mechanisms of how increased PAR affects the combustion temperature

286 To sum up, the combustion temperature inside the furnace shows a parabolic variation trend with PAR increasing, but

287 how the increased PAR affects the in-furnace combustion performance still remains unclear. Thus, three possible

288 mechanisms for this phenomenon are discussed in detail as following.

289 (1) Difference in total air energy input. With PAR increasing, the secondary air ratio decreases correspondingly. Since

290 primary air temperature is lower than that of SA, the total energy input carried by air is thus reduced. For wet air, the

291 specific enthalpy can be calculated by temperature and moisture content as Eq. (18):

292 𝐼 = (1.01 + 1.84𝑑)(𝑇𝑎𝑖𝑟 ‒ 273.15) + 2500𝑑 (18)

293 According to above Eq. (18), primary air and secondary air enthalpy is calculated to be 80.32𝑘𝑗/𝑘𝑔 and 420.08𝑘𝑗/𝑘𝑔

294 respectively. Then the total enthalpy input carried by air is calculated as the mass-weighted summation of primary air and

295 secondary air flow as:

296 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 = 𝑞𝑚,𝑎𝑖𝑟 ∙ [𝐼𝑃𝐴 ∙ 𝑃𝐴𝑅 + 𝐼𝑆𝐴(1 ‒ 𝑃𝐴𝑅 ‒ 0.2)] (19)

297 The total air enthalpy 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 under each cases are calculated and presented in Table 2. For the worst combustion case 5,

298 the decrement of 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 is 0.266x105𝑘𝑗/𝑠 when compared with the design case 1. Meanwhile, the energy of brown coal fed

299 into the furnace is 2.02x106𝑘𝑗/𝑠. The reduction of 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 is only 1.30% of the total energy input, which means it cannot be

300 the main cause of the lower furnace temperature and poor combustion performance in large PAR scenarios. Besides, 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟

301 decreases monotonously with the increase of PAR, which cannot explain the temperature increase in the near wall region

302 under cases with extremely large PAR.

303 (2) Momentum ratio of primary air to secondary air. The momentum of primary air flow and secondary air flow is

304 calculated as Eq. (20) and Eq. (21), respectively.

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𝑃𝑃𝐴 = 𝑞𝑚,𝑎𝑖𝑟 ∙ 𝑃𝐴𝑅 ∙ 𝑣𝑃𝐴 (20)

𝑃𝑆𝐴 = 𝑞𝑚,𝑎𝑖𝑟 ∙ (1 ‒ 𝑃𝐴𝑅 ‒ 0.2) ∙ 𝑣𝑆𝐴 (21)

305 Then the momentum ratio between primary air flow and secondary air flow is calculated as:

𝑃𝐴𝑅 𝑣𝑃𝐴
𝑃𝑃𝐴
306 𝑃𝑆𝐴 = 1 ‒ 𝑃𝐴𝑅 ‒ 0.2 ∙ 𝑣 (22)
𝑆𝐴

307 According to the research of Ahmed et al [44], the velocity ratio between primary fuel stream and secondary air stream

308 plays an important role in the mixing process, and the combustion performance depends largely on the mixing process of

309 coal and supplementary air [42][45]. Therefore when the momentum of PA and SA is too close, the mixing and combustion

𝑃𝑃𝐴
310 of pulverized coal becomes worse. The momentum ratio 𝑃𝑆𝐴 is calculated and listed in Table 2, which can be used to

311 explain the change process of combustion temperature mentioned above. From case 1 to 5, the momentum ratio changes

312 towards 1, indicating that the momentum of PA and SA is getting close. Correspondingly, the high temperature zone shown

313 in Fig.4 decreases gradually. While from case 6 to 10, the momentum ratio gets away from 1, which means the momentum

314 difference of PA and SA is enlarged, so that the temperature in the near wall region goes up again slightly.

315 (3) Pulverized coal concentration and supplementary air. In fact, the momentum difference is also great in cases with

316 extremely large PAR, like case 9 and case10, but the combustion temperature is still at a relatively low level. This is because

317 the overly increased PAR lowers the concentration of pulverized coal in primary fuel stream. In these cases, per unit mass

318 of coal particles is surrounded by more low temperature PA, so that more heat is needed to heat up coal particles before

319 the ignition and combustion process. So that the combustion performance is still not as good as the design case, even if the

320 mixing process is improved.

321 3.2 Heat flux distribution

322 3.2.1 Heat flux spatial distribution contour on the furnace wall

323 To generate steam with high temperature and high pressure, the heat released from coal combustion is absorbed by

324 the working medium inside the water tubes located at FW and other heating surfaces. Therefore, the heat flux distribution

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325 on these heating surfaces will notably affect the overall boiler efficiency. Fig.7 depicts the spatial distribution contour of

326 heat flux on FW, which represents the intensity of the heat transfer process. The negative values mean that FW absorbs

327 heat from the high temperature flues gas. The spatial distribution of heat flux on FW is asymmetric due to the burners are

328 installed away from the centerline of FW. Since the high temperature zone is primarily located in the mid part of the

329 furnace, Y ranges from 0 to 25m, the heat flux intensity is much higher in this region. As the figure depicts, the most

330 intensive heat transfer process occurs in the design firing case 1. With the increase of PAR, the heat transfer intensity

331 decreases gradually at first. However, when PAR exceeds 0.425, the heat flux on FW increases again slightly, but still not

332 as high as case 1 and 2.

333 The variation of heat flux intensity under different cases is consistent with the temperature distribution shown in Fig.4,

334 as the radiation intensity is proportional to the fourth power of the combustion temperature. The high temperature zone in

335 the near wall region decreases obviously from case 1 to 5 and then scales up again slightly from case 6 to 10 (Fig.4), so

336 that the heat transfer intensity enlarges in a small range after an initial rapid decrease. In pulverized coal boiler, the radiation

337 is absolutely dominant in the heat transfer process [43][46]. Therefore the reduction in heat transfer intensity will decrease

338 the amount of heat absorbed by the water wall tubes, as discussed in the following paragraph.

339 3.2.2 Variation of radiative heat flux on all heating surfaces

340 The following Fig.8 presents the variation of radiative heat flux on different heating surfaces, including FW, PSH and

341 RSH, where ALL denotes the sum of all these three parts. It’s noteworthy that each individual part represents a surface

342 group. For instance, the FW denotes a surfaces group, consisting of surfaces that covers from the bottom to the top of the

343 furnace on the four side walls. From Fig.8 we can see that with PAR increasing, the radiative heat flux on FW decrease at

344 first and then increases, the minimum value is 427.1MW when PAR is 0.425. However, the change of radiative heat flux

345 on PSH and RSH is exactly the opposite. As the figure depicts, the total radiation heat flux is reduced by 5.78%, from

346 609.1MW to 573.9MW, which is in conformity with the reality. Although the radiation heat flux on FW rise again when

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347 PAR exceeds 0.425, the overall radiative heat flux remains stable after an initial rapid reduction. This is due to the increase

348 of radiative heat flux on FW is counteracted by the decrease of it on PSH and RSH.

349 The variation of heat flux on these heating surfaces is identical with the temperature distribution shown in above

350 Fig.4, where the temperature above SOFA region decreases after an initial increase, and the temperature in the near wall

351 region decrease at first and then goes up again. As majority of the heat released from coal combustion is designed to be

352 absorbed by water wall tubes located on FW, the decreases of heat flux on FW will result in an obvious decrement of total

353 heat absorption, and thus lowers the boiler efficiency. Meanwhile, the increase of heat flux on PSH and RSH may lead to

354 an over-temperature on the heat absorbing tubes of PSH and RSH. In some extra cases, the severe over-temperature of

355 tubes will result in tube failure and even unplanned boiler shut down [47][48].

356 3.3 Distribution of oxygen and carbon oxide

357 The distribution profile of O2 and CO mass fraction under different cases are plotted in Fig.9 and Fig.10, respectively.

358 The residual O2 reflects the utilization efficiency of oxidant, and the CO mass fraction can be used as an effective criteria

359 for the coal combustion sufficiency. Due to the intensive O2 consumption and newly supply of fresh air, O2 mass fraction

360 in Fig.9 shows several peaks and valleys in MBs’ region. In the SOFA region, O2 mass fraction firstly increases due to the

361 input of separated over fire air, and then remains at a relatively high level since the combustion intensity decreases above

362 the SOFA region. For CO mass fraction, we can see from Fig.10 that it is relatively high in MBs’ region, because the

363 combustion here is intensive and the oxidant is in a low level. In the SOFA region, CO content decreases gradually and

364 reaches to a very low level in the furnace roof region. This can be explained as the input of fresh air and the consumption

365 of CO along the furnace height.

366 From Fig.9, we can see that O2 mass fraction increases gradually when PAR varies from 0.325 to 0.425, and then

367 decreases gradually when PAR is in the range from 0.45 to 0.55. It means the oxidant utilization becomes worse when PAR

368 is increased from case 1 to case 5, and then the utilization efficiency gets better again from case 6 to 10. Similar conclusion

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369 can be obtained from CO mass fraction profile. As Fig.10 shows, CO content increases gradually at first with PAR

370 increasing, and thereafter decreases when PAR exceeds 0.425. This can be explained as the coal combustion gets worse at

371 first when PAR is slightly increased and after that, the combustion gets improved again.

372 We can find that the temperature variation shown in Fig.4 matches well with the distribution profile of O2 and CO

373 mass fraction depicted in Fig.9 and Fig.10. As shown in case 1 to 5, when combustion process becomes worse, the oxidant

374 utilization gets worse and CO content increases, thus the combustion temperature decreases correspondingly. On the

375 contrary, when the combustion gets better in case 6 to 10, the O2 and CO content decreases and the combustion temperature

376 arises again. Detailed reason of why O2 and CO shows such a variation trend with PAR increasing has been presented

377 previously in above section 3.1.3.

378 3.4 Unburned char particles

379 3.4.1 Mass fraction distribution of unburned char particles

380 As was reported [8][11], the release and combustion of volatile matters gets started and finished quickly in the vicinity

381 of the burners, so that the mass concentration of unburned char particles (UCPs) is selected to represent the utilization of

382 fuel. Fig.11 shows the contour of UCPs’ concentration in the very middle of MBs’ region (Y=8.93m). As the figure depicts,

383 UCPs are predominantly concentrated at the tangential circle formed in the furnace. With PAR increasing, the concentration

384 of UCPs increases gradually at first and then decreases slightly, but still maintains at a very high level. The variation of

385 UCPs’ concentration coincides well with the distribution of temperature, O2 and CO content discussed above, as the

386 combustion efficiency of char particles determines the utilization of O2, and thus affects the combustion temperature level

387 and CO generation process.

388 3.4.2 Unburned char particles at the furnace exit

389 As the parameters in MBs’ region cannot fully reflect the overall combustion performance inside the furnace, the

390 variation of UCPs’ concentration at the hypothetical furnace exit, denoted as data reference plane in Fig.1a, is illustrated

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391 in Fig.12. As can be seen, the concentration of UCPs at the hypothetical furnace exit increases slightly when PAR is

392 increased from 0.325 to 0.45, and then enlarges obviously when PAR varies from 0.45 to 0.55. As described in section

393 3.1.1, when PAR is increased in a small range, coal combustion deteriorates in MBs’ region, but the unburned coal particles

394 are then burned above SOFA region, so that the increase of UCPs’ concentration is not evident. However, when PAR is

395 further increased, the overall combustion performance continuously to deteriorate, even if the combustion process in MBs’

396 region gets improved slightly. Therefore, more coal particles leave the furnace exit without being burned, resulting in an

397 obvious increase of UCPs’ concentration.

398 The elevation of UCPs’ concentration diminishes the utilization of fuel energy, thus the combustion temperature

399 decreases and the heat transfer intensity is weaken in those cases with high UCP s’ concentration, as shown in Fig.4 and

400 Fig.7. In addition, the increase of UCPs’ concentration will inevitably augments the amount of fly ash. The increase of fly

401 ash content will cause a severe deposition on the following convective heating surfaces and jeopardizes the overall heat

402 transfer coefficient, due to its low thermal conductivity of ash deposition layer [49][50]. In some extra situation, the fly ash

403 deposition may result in an unplanned shutdown of the boiler units [51].

404 4. Conclusions

405 In this paper, a three dimensional CFD model was established based on a 660MW wall-fired pulverized coal boiler.

406 Confidence in the model was obtained by carrying out the mesh independence test and the validation against real life data

407 and theoretical calculations. Then it was used to simulate 10 cases where PAR varies from the design value 0.325 to the

408 actual operational value 0.55. The temperature, heat flux distribution, O2 mass fraction, CO mass fraction and UCPs’

409 concentration were selected to analyze the effect of PAR on the combustion performance. From the above results and

410 discussion, some particular conclusions can be drawn:

411 1. A slight decrease of PA/PC temperature has very little influence on coal combustion performance inside the furnace

412 and the overall boiler efficiency.

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413 2. The increase of PAR has a great influence on the combustion performance. As a whole, the combustion process

414 deteriorates with the increase of PAR. However, in MBs’ region and the region above SOFA, the combustion

415 characteristics show a parabolic trend with PAR increasing.

416 3. The reduction of total air energy input is not the main cause of the combustion behavior deterioration, since it accounts

𝑃𝑃𝐴
417 for only 1.30% of the total energy input. The variation of 𝑃𝑆𝐴 is the main cause of the boiler performance

418 degradation, due to its great effects on the mixing and combustion process.

419 4. In cases with extremely large PAR, the reduction of pulverized coal concentration and the increase of ignition heat

420 constrain the improvement of combustion behavior. So that the combustion performance in cases with extremely large

421 PAR is still not as good as the design firing case.

422 Based on this research, it is suggested that the operation condition, where the momentum of PA and SA is too close

423 to each other, should be avoided, since the combustion performance under such conditions is the worst. A feasible solution

424 is proposed to solve the problem caused by the increase of moisture content in brown coal boiler. That is to raise the

425 temperature of PA that enters the mill system, to meet the increasing demand of drying capacity. In this way, PAR remains

426 at the design value and the reduction of boiler efficiency and boiler thermal load caused by increased PAR can be avoided.

427 Acknowledgements

428 This work was supported by the Technology Research Program of China Huaneng Group (Contract No. HNBFKJ-

429 2014-SC-05). Shangdu power plant is gratefully acknowledged for providing the real operational data.

Nomenclature 𝑀𝑤,𝑜𝑥 molecular weight of oxidant

Abbreviation 𝑛 refractive index of the medium
CFD computational fluid dynamics 𝑃𝑃𝐴 momentum of primary air flow
FW furnace wall 𝑃𝑆𝐴 momentum of secondary air flow
MB main burner 𝑃𝑃𝐴 momentum ratio between primary air and
𝑃𝑆𝐴

MC moisture content secondary air flow

PA primary air 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 total air energy input
PAR primary air ratio 𝑞𝑚,𝑎𝑖𝑟 total mass flow rate of air

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PA/PC primary air / pulverized coal mixture 𝑅 universal gas content

PPE power plant efficiency ℛ1 devolatilization rate at low temperature range
PSH platen super-heater ℛ2 devolatilization rate at high temperature range
RSH rear super-heater 𝑆 generalized source term
SA secondary air 𝑇𝑎𝑖𝑟 temperature of wet air, K
SOFA separated over fire air 𝑇𝑝 particle temperature
UCP unburned char particle 𝑢 fluid phase velocity
Symbol 𝑢𝑝 velocity of discrete phase particle
'
𝑎 absorption coefficient 𝑢 (𝑡) velocity fluctuation value
𝑎𝜀,𝑖 emissivity weighting factor of 𝑖th gray gas 𝑣𝑃𝐴 primary air velocity
𝑏𝜀,𝑖,𝑗 emissivity gas temperature polynomial coefficients 𝑣𝑆𝐴 secondary air velocity
𝐶 linear-anisotropic phase function coefficient 𝑌𝑜𝑥 mass fraction of oxidant
𝐶𝐷 drag coefficient 𝑍𝑖 mass fraction for element 𝑖
𝑐𝑝 specific heat capacity 𝑍𝑖,𝑓𝑢𝑒𝑙 mass fraction at fuel stream inlet
𝑑 moisture content in wet air 𝑍𝑖,𝑜𝑥 mass fraction at oxidizer stream inlet
𝑑𝑝 diameter of discrete phase particle 𝛼1 yield factor at low temperature range
𝑓 instantaneous mixture fraction 𝛼2 yield factor at high temperature range
𝑓 mean mixture fraction Γ generalized diffusion coefficient
'2
𝑓 mean mixture fraction variance 𝜀 turbulence dissipation rate
𝑔 gravitational acceleration constant 𝜅𝑖 absorption coefficient of the 𝑖th gray gas
𝐻 mean enthalpy 𝜇 dynamic viscosity
𝐼 specific enthalpy of wet air 𝜇𝑙 laminar viscosity
𝐼𝑃𝐴 enthalpy of primary air 𝜇𝑡 turbulent viscosity
𝐼𝑆𝐴 enthalpy of secondary air 𝜌 fluid phase density
𝑘 turbulence kinetic energy 𝜌𝑝 density of discrete phase particle
𝑘𝑓 heat transfer coefficient 𝜎 Stefan-Boltzmann constant
𝑚𝑎 mass of ash content in the particle 𝜎𝑠 scattering coefficient
𝑚𝑝,0 initial particle mass 𝜙 universal variable
𝑚𝑣(𝑡) volatile yield up to time 𝑡 𝜙𝑖 mean value of species mass fraction, density, etc.

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544 Table 1. Physical properties of brown coal used in this simulation work.

Proximate analysis (wt%, ar) Ultimate analysis (wt%, daf) LHVar

Fixed carbon Volatile Ash Moisture C H O N S (KJ/kg)
24.77 20.37 16.86 38.00 75.17 5.45 16.64 0.95 1.79 12120
545 ar, on a received basis, daf, on a dry ash-free basis, LHV represents the lower heating value
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553 Table 2. Detailed information of velocity inlet boundary condition.

Case 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
PAR 0.325 0.350 0.375 0.400 0.425 0.450 0.475 0.500 0.525 0.550
VPA (m/s) 25.9 27.9 29.9 31.9 33.8 35.8 37.8 39.8 41.8 43.8
VSA (m/s) 50.8 48.1 45.4 42.7 40.1 37.4 34.7 32.1 29.4 26.7
𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟(x105kJ) 2.423 2.356 2.290 2.224 2.157 2.091 2.024 1.958 1.891 1.825
𝑃𝑃𝐴 0.349 1.592 2.714
𝑃𝑆𝐴 0.451 0.581 0.747 0.955 1.231 2.066 3.609

554 𝑄𝑎𝑖𝑟 represents the total air energy input, 𝑃𝑃𝐴 represents the momentum of primary air, 𝑃𝑆𝐴 represents the momentum

𝑃𝑃𝐴
555 of secondary air. 𝑃𝑆𝐴 represents the momentum ratio between primary air and secondary air flow

556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563 Table 3. Specific meaning of 𝜙, Γ and 𝑆 in different governing equations.

𝜙 Γ 𝑆
Continuity equation 1 0 0

Momentum equation 𝑢𝑖 ∂𝑝
𝜇 ‒ ∂𝑥𝑖 + 𝑆𝑖

Energy equation 𝑘𝑓 𝑆𝑇
𝑇 𝑐𝑝

Turbulence kinetic energy 𝜇𝑡 𝐺𝑘 ‒ 𝜌𝜀

𝑘 μ+ 𝜎𝑘

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Turbulence dissipation rate 𝜀 μ+

𝜇𝑡
𝜎𝑠 𝐶1𝜀𝐺 ε 𝑘 ‒ 𝐶 𝜌𝜀2 𝑘
𝑘 2𝜀

564

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565 Table 4. Comparison of CFD results and reference data.

velocity (m/s) temperature (K) O2 mass fraction H2O mass fraction CO2 mass fraction
CFD results 10.7 a 1212 a 0.0492b 0.0895b 0.1885 b
Reference data 11.2a 1237a 0.0470b 0.0929b 0.1872 b
Relative discrepancy 4.46% 2.02% 4.68% 3.68% 0.69%
566 a. represents the real-life data of actual unfavorable firing case 10, b. denotes the theoretical calculations of design
567 case 1, on a wet basis.
568
569
570
571
572
573
574 Table 5. Parameters at the furnace exit and the overall heat flux under different PA/PC temperature.
PA/PC temperature (K) 328 335 343
flue gas temperature (K) 1216.8 1218.6 1220.7
UCPs’ concentration (x10-2 kg/m3) 0.539 0.537 0.535
overall radiative heat flux (MW) 609.4 611.2 613.5
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582 Table 6. Area-weighted temperature difference between design case 1 and other cases.
Case 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Temperature difference (K) 0 12.2 33.6 51.6 52.1 59.1 53.0 52.9 49.3 49.1
583

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(a) Geometric configuration of boiler (b) Detailed installation information of burners and air nozzles

Fig.1. Schematic of the furnace and the arrangements of main burners and air nozzles
584

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Fig.2. Devolatilization model and product compositions for brown coal used (as received basis).
585

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3.27M
22 3.92M
4.53M

Velocity Magnitude (m/s)

5.09M
20

18

16

LMB region IMB region UMB region

14
0.0 2.5 5.0 7.5 10.0 12.5 15.0 17.5
Distance from the reference plane (m)

Fig.3. Velocity profile along the furnace height under different mesh systems
586

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Case 1 Case 3 Case 5

Case 6 Case 8 Case 10

Fig.4. Temperature distribution contour on the vertical cut at Z=0.
587

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Case 1 Case 3 Case 5

Case 6 Case 8 Case 10

Fig.5. Temperature distribution contour on the horizontal cut at fourth layer of burners at Y=8.93m.
588

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Mass-weighted average temperature (K)

1650 0.325 1650 0.450
0.350 0.475
1600 0.375 1600 0.500
0.400 0.525
1550 1550 0.550
0.425
1500 1500

1450
1450

1400
1400
1350
1350
SOFA region arch zone SOFA region arch zone
MBs' region MBs' region
1300
1300
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Dsitance from the reference plane (m) Dsitance from the reference plane (m)

(a) PAR in the range from 0.325 to 0.425 (b) PAR in the range from 0.450 to 0.550

Fig.6. Mass-weighted average temperature distribution profile of horizontal cross-section along the furnace height.
589

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Case 1 Case 3 Case 5

Case 6 Case 8 Case 10

Fig.7. Contour of heat flux spatial distribution on furnace wall.
590

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592

FW
ALL
600 PSH 100

Radiative Heat Flux (MW)

RSH
585 90

570 80

50
465

450
45
435

40
0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55
Primary air ratio

Fig.8. Variation of radiative heat flux on different heating surfaces.

593

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7 7
O2 mass fraction (%)

O2 mass fraction (%)

6 6

5 5

4 4
0.325 0.450
3 3 0.475
0.350
0.375 0.500
2 2
0.400 0.525
MBs' region SOFA region 0.425 1 MBs' region SOFA region 0.550
1

5 10 15 20 25 30 5 10 15 20 25 30
Dsitance from the reference plane (m) Dsitance from the reference plane (m)

(a) PAR in the range from 0.325 to 0.425 (b) PAR in the range from 0.450 to 0.550
Fig.9. Area-weighted average O2 distribution profile of horizontal cross-section along the furnace height.
594

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0.325 0.450
0.350 0.475
1.8 1.8
0.375 0.500

CO mass fraction (%)

CO mass fraction (%)

0.400 0.525
0.425 0.550
1.2 1.2

0.6 0.6

0.0 0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Dsitance from the reference plane (m) Dsitance from the reference plane (m)

(a) PAR in the range from 0.325 to 0.425 (b) PAR in the range from 0.450 to 0.550
Fig.10. Area-weighted average CO mass fraction distribution profile of horizontal cross-section along the furnace height
595

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Case 1 Case 3 Case 5

Case 6 Case 8 Case 10

Fig.11. Distribution of UCPs’ concentration in the very middle of main burners’ region (Y=8.93m).
596

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UCPs' concentration (x10-2kg/m3)

0.568

0.560

0.552

0.544

0.536

0.30 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55

Primary air ratio
Fig.12. Variation of UCPs’ concentration at the hypothetical furnace exit under different PAR.
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Highlights

 Effects of increased primary air ratio in a 660MW pulverized boiler were simulated.
 Primary air ratio has great influence on coal combustion and boiler efficiency.
 Mechanisms of how primary air ratio affects the boiler performance was discussed.
 Situation where momentum of primary and secondary air is close should be avoided.
 Suggestion is given to avoid the bad effects caused by increased primary air ratio.