Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Oil-fired power plants usually use several burners and the combustion air is supplied to each burner through the complicated duct which is called windbox. A windbox should be designed to supply combustion air to each burner evenly but, due to the complicated duct shape, flow distribution in the wind...

Oil-fired power plants usually use several burners and the combustion air is supplied to each burner through the complicated duct which is called windbox. A windbox should be designed to supply combustion air to each burner evenly but, due to the complicated duct shape, flow distribution in the windbox is unbalanced and uneven supplies of combustion air to each burner are induced by these unbalanced flow distribution in the windbox. These flow patterns tend to make flame unstable, increase the formation of pollutants and lower the overall combustion efficiency. To prevent these disadvantages, flow patterns in the windbox should be investigated for the uniform flow distribution. In this study, computational simulation method was used to investigate the flow distribution in the windbox and measured the velocities at the exit of burners in the real windbox to compare with CFD results. The results show two significant flow patterns. One is that the flow rates of each burner are different from each other and this means that all burners operate in different conditions of air to fuel ratio. The other is that the flow distribution at the exit of each burner is not axi-symmetric although the burner shape is axi-symmetric and this increases the pollutant products like CO.