Charcoal gasification could mitigate the energetic problems in the rural zones since these regions have considerable amounts of wood, which is the base of such a fuel available. This paper presents some CFD （computat...Charcoal gasification could mitigate the energetic problems in the rural zones since these regions have considerable amounts of wood, which is the base of such a fuel available. This paper presents some CFD （computational fluid dynamic） predictions of the experimental results obtained from the fixed bed gasification of charcoal made in a pilot-scale downdraft reactor using air, which was designed and built by the Research Group in Clean Development Mechanisms and Energy Management, from the National University of Colombia. The quality of the syngas obtained from the process was evaluated through the CO and CO2 percentages measured in its composition. The performance at various air flow rates （measured at the system entrance, through an analog flow meter） is evaluated with the help of 11 thermocouples, which give the information to create a temperature profile, and three load cells to measure the solid fuel conversion rate. To simulate the process, the information from temperature profile, charcoal proximate analysis, air flow meter and load cells were taken as inputs and the syngas composition was obtained as the result from the calculation. The domain was defined as 2D with an axis-symmetric description, using quads as mesh elements. The calculation and results were performed in a CFD commercial code widely used for this type of simulations： ANSYS FLUENT. The predictions made by the software were validated with the experimental results obtained in the laboratory.展开更多
文摘Charcoal gasification could mitigate the energetic problems in the rural zones since these regions have considerable amounts of wood, which is the base of such a fuel available. This paper presents some CFD （computational fluid dynamic） predictions of the experimental results obtained from the fixed bed gasification of charcoal made in a pilot-scale downdraft reactor using air, which was designed and built by the Research Group in Clean Development Mechanisms and Energy Management, from the National University of Colombia. The quality of the syngas obtained from the process was evaluated through the CO and CO2 percentages measured in its composition. The performance at various air flow rates （measured at the system entrance, through an analog flow meter） is evaluated with the help of 11 thermocouples, which give the information to create a temperature profile, and three load cells to measure the solid fuel conversion rate. To simulate the process, the information from temperature profile, charcoal proximate analysis, air flow meter and load cells were taken as inputs and the syngas composition was obtained as the result from the calculation. The domain was defined as 2D with an axis-symmetric description, using quads as mesh elements. The calculation and results were performed in a CFD commercial code widely used for this type of simulations： ANSYS FLUENT. The predictions made by the software were validated with the experimental results obtained in the laboratory.
