Simulation of gas-solid flow characteristics of the circulating fluidized bed boiler under pure-oxygen combustion conditions

Under the pressure of carbon neutrality,many carbon capture,utilization and storage technologies have witnessed rapid development in the recent years,including oxy-fuel combustion(OFC)technology.However,the conventional OFC technology usually depends on the flue gas recirculation system,which faces significant investment,high energy consumption,and potential low-temperature corrosion problem.Considering these deficiencies,the direct utilization of pure oxygen to achieve particle fluidization and fuel combustion may reduce the overall energy consumption and CO_(2)-capture costs.In this paper,the fundamental structure of a self-designed 130 t·h^(-1) pure-oxygen combustion circulating fluidized bed(CFB)boiler was provided,and the computational particle fluid dynamics method was used to analyze the gas-solid flow characteristics of this new-concept boiler under different working conditions.The results indicate that through the careful selection of design or operational parameters,such as average bed-material size and fluidization velocity,the pure-oxygen combustion CFB system can maintain the ideal fluidization state,namely significant internal and external particle circulation.Besides,the contraction section of the boiler leads to the particle backflow in the lower furnace,resulting in the particle suspension concentration near the wall region being higher than that in the center region.Conversely,the upper furnace still retains the classic core-annulus flow structure.In addition to increasing solid circulation rate by reducing the average bed-material size,altering primary gas ratio and bed inventory can also exert varying degrees of influence on the gas-solid flow characteristics of the pure-oxygen combustion CFB boiler.

Advancements and Applications of Polyurethane Curing Technology in Railway Track Bed Construction in China

This paper examines the application of polyurethane curing technology in the construction of railway track beds,with a specific focus on its implementation in China’s rapidly developing railway infrastructure.The study begins by identifying the limitations of traditional ballasted track beds,especially under the demands of high-speed and heavyload railways.It then methodically analyzes the advantages of polyurethane-cured track beds,highlighting their improved mechanical properties,including enhanced stability and durability.The paper further explores the benefits of transitioning to prefabricated polyurethane track beds,emphasizing significant cost reductions,better construction quality,and enhanced maintainability.Through a detailed review of experimental data and practical applications,the paper demonstrates the efficacy of polyurethane track beds in various railway settings.A critical part of the research involves optimizing the structural parameters of polyurethane track beds to achieve the best balance of mechanical and damping properties.The conclusion of the paper underscores the potential of polyurethane curing technology as a transformative approach to railway track bed construction,offering a solution to the challenges posed by traditional methods and aligning with the evolving needs of modern railways.

Modularized dry coal beneficiation technique based on gas-solid fluidized bed

A 40-60 t/h modularized dry coal beneficiation process with a novel method to control the bed was designed around a gas-solid fluidized bed separator. Furthermore, the hydrodynamics of medium-solids consisting of wide-size-range magnetite powder （0.3-0.06 ram） and 〈1 mm fine coal were numerically studied. The simulation results show that the fluidization performance of the wide-size-range medium-solid bed is good. The separation performance of the modularized system was then investigated in detail using a mixture of 〈0.3 mm magnetite powder （mass fraction of 0.3-0.06 mm particles is 91.38 %） and 〈1 mm fine coal as solid media. The experimental results show that at separation densities of 1.33 g/cm^3 or 1.61 g/cm^3, 50-6 mm coal can be separated effectively with probable error, E, values of 0.05 g/cm^3 and 0.06 g/cm^3, respectively. This technique is beneficial for saving water resources and for the clean utilization of coal.

Experimental Study on Gas-Solid Mass Transfer in Circulating Fluidized Beds

This study is devoted to gas-solid mass transfer behavior inheterogeneous two-phase flow. Experiments were carried out in a coldcirculating fluidized bed of 3.0 m in height and 72 mm in diameterwith naphthalene particles. Axial and radial distributions ofsublimated naphthalene concentration in air were measured with an on-line concentration monitoring system HP GC-MS. Mass transfercoefficients were obtained under various operating conditions,showing that heterogeneous flow structure strongly influences theaxial and radial profiles of mass transfer coefficients.

CFD simulation of pressure fluctuation characteristics in the gas-solid fluidized bed:Comparisons with experiments

A simple hydrodynamic model based on two-fluid theory, taking into account the effect of discrete particles on both the gas- and solid-phase momentum equations, was used to numerically investigate the pressure fluctuation characteristics in a gas-solid fluidized bed with the aid of CFX 4.4, a commercial CFD software package, by adding user-defined Fortran subroutines. Numerical simulations together with typical experimental measurements show that pressure fluctuations originate above the distributor when a gas pulse is injected into the fluidized bed. The pressure above the bubble gradually increases due to the presence of a rising bubble. When the bubble passes through the bed surface, the pressure near the bed surface gradually decreases to a lower value. Moreover, the pressure signals in the bubbling fluidized beds show obviously periodic characteristics. The major frequency of pressure fluctuations at the same vertical position is affected slightly by the operating gas velocity, and the amplitude of pressure fluctuations is related to both the operating gas velocity and the vertical height. In this study, the influence of the operating gas velocity on the pressure wave propagation velocity can be ignored, and only two peak frequencies in the power spectrum of the pressure fluctuations are observed which are associated with the bubble formation above the distributor and its eruption at the bed surface.

Multi-scale Analysis of Chaotic Characteristics in a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed

Deterministic chaos theory offers useful quantitative tools tocharacterize the non-linear dynamic be- havior of a fluidized bed andthe developed complexity theory presents a new approach to evaluatefinite sequences. In this paper, the non-linear, hydrodynamicbehavior of the pressure fluctuation signals in a reactor wasdiscussed By chaos parameters and complexity measures. Coherentresults were achieved by our multi-scale analysis, which Furtherexposed the behavior in a gas-solid two-phase system.

Simulation of gas-solid fluidized bed reactor for F-T synthesis

Using the lumping method, CH_4, C_3H_8, C_10H_22, and C_22H_44 were chosen as themodel products, and CO as the key component. The mathematical model of a gas-solidfluidized bed reactor was established based on some hypotheses. The consumption kinetic model of CO was investigated, and the parameters were estimated by UniversalGlobal Optimization with the Marquardt method. Residual error distribution and a statisticaltest show that the intrinsic kinetic models are reliable and acceptable. A model of carbonchain growth probability was established in terms of experiments. Coupled with the Ander-son- Schulz-Flory (ASF) distribution, the amount of specific product could be obtained.Large- scale cold model experiments were conducted to investigate the distribution of thegas (solid) phase and determine the function of the voidage with the location of the catalytic bed. The change tendencies of the components in the catalytic bed at different temperatures were computed and figured out. The calculated value computed by the modelestablished for the Fe-based F-T synthesis catalyst fit the experimental value very wellunder the same operating conditions, and all the absolute values of the relative deviationsare less than 5%.

Computational study of bubble coalescence/break-up behaviors and bubble size distribution in a 3-D pressurized bubbling gas-solid fluidized bed of Geldart A particles

A computational study was carried out on bubble dynamic behaviors and bubble size distributions in a pressurized lab-scale gas-solid fluidized bed of Geldart A particles.High-resolution 3-D numerical simulations were performed using the two-fluid model based on the kinetic theory of granular flow.A finegrid,which is in the range of 3–4 particle diameters,was utilized in order to capture bubble structures explicitly without breaking down the continuum assumption for the solid phase.A novel bubble tracking scheme was developed in combination with a 3-D detection and tracking algorithm(MS3 DATA)and applied to detect the bubble statistics,such as bubble size,location in each time frame and relative position between two adjacent time frames,from numerical simulations.The spatial coordinates and corresponding void fraction data were sampled at 100 Hz for data analyzing.The bubble coalescence/break-up frequencies and the daughter bubble size distribution were evaluated by using the new bubble tracking algorithm.The results showed that the bubble size distributed non-uniformly over cross-sections in the bed.The equilibrium bubble diameter due to bubble break-up and coalescence dynamics can be obtained,and the bubble rise velocity follows Davidson’s correlation closely.Good agreements were obtained between the computed results and that predicted by using the bubble break-up model proposed in our previous work.The computational bubble tracking method showed the potential of analyzing bubble motions and the coalescence and break-up characteristics based on time series data sets of void fraction maps obtained numerically and experimentally.

Comparative analysis on gas–solid drag models in MFIX-DEM simulations of bubbling fluidized bed

In this study,the open-source software MFIX-DEM simulations of a bubbling fluidized bed(BFB)are applied to assess nine drag models according to experimental and direct numerical simulation(DNS)results.The influence of superficial gas velocity on gas–solid flow is also examined.The results show that according to the distribution of time-averaged particle axial velocity in y direction,except for Wen–Yu and Tenneti–Garg–Subramaniam(TGS),other drag models are consistent with the experimental and DNS results.For the TGS drag model,the layer-by-layer movement of particles is observed,which indicates the particle velocity is not correctly predicted.The time domain and frequency domain analysis results of pressure drop of each drag model are similar.It is recommended to use the drag model derived from DNS or fine grid computational fluid dynamics–discrete element method(CFD-DEM)data first for CFD-DEM simulations.For the investigated BFB,the superficial gas velocity less than 0.9 m·s^(-1) should be adopted to obtain normal hydrodynamics.

Wavelet Characterization of the Flow Regime in a Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed

Processes like combustion, pyrolysis or gasification of coal and biomass are typical applications of gas-solid fluidized beds. These reactors normally use silica sand as the inert material inside the bed and the sand particles represent around 95% of the total bed weight. Pressure measurements have been used to characterize the dynamic behavior of fluidized beds since early researches in the area. Pressure fluctuations are generally due to bubbles flow which characterizes the fluidization regime. The present work aims to perform a time-frequency analysis of the pressure signal acquired in an experimental apparatus on different gas-solid flow regimes. Continuous and discrete wavelet transforms were applied and the results were compared with image records acquired simultaneously with the pressure signal. The main frequencies observed are in accordance with the ones obtained through Fourier spectra. The time-frequency distribution of the signal agrees with the phenomena observed in the image record, remarkably for the slugging flow. Some additional research is still necessary to completely characterize the flow regimes using the wavelet scalograms but the present results show that the task is a very promising one.

Fluidized-bed chlorination thermodynamics and kinetics of Kenya natural rutile ore

Natural rutile and gaseous chlorine with carbon as reductant were used to prepare titanium tetrachloride. Thermodynamics and kinetics of chlorination of Kenya natural rutile particles in a batch-type fluidized bed were studied at 1173-1273 K. Thermodynamic analysis of this system revealed that the equation of producing CO was dominant at high temperatures. Based on the gas-solid multi-phase reaction theory and a two-phase model for the fluidized bed, the mathematical description for the chlorination reaction of rutile was proposed. The reaction parameters and the average concentration of gaseous chlorine in the emulsion phase were estimated. The average concentration of emulsion phase in the range of fluidized bed was calculated as 0.3 mol/m^3. The results showed that the chlorination of natural rutile proceeded principally in the emulsion phase, and the reaction rate was mainly controlled by the surface reaction.

A Case Study Applying Mesoscience to Deep Learning

In this paper,we propose mesoscience-guided deep learning(MGDL),a deep learning modeling approach guided by mesoscience,to study complex systems.When establishing sample dataset based on the same system evolution data,different from the operation of conventional deep learning method,MGDL introduces the treatment of the dominant mechanisms of complex system and interactions between them according to the principle of compromise in competition(CIC)in mesoscience.Mesoscience constraints are then integrated into the loss function to guide the deep learning training.Two methods are proposed for the addition of mesoscience constraints.The physical interpretability of the model-training process is improved by MGDL because guidance and constraints based on physical principles are provided.MGDL was evaluated using a bubbling bed modeling case and compared with traditional techniques.With a much smaller training dataset,the results indicate that mesoscience-constraint-based model training has distinct advantages in terms of convergence stability and prediction accuracy,and it can be widely applied to various neural network configurations.The MGDL approach proposed in this paper is a novel method for utilizing the physical background information during deep learning model training.Further exploration of MGDL will be continued in the future.

Bubble dynamics properties of B-particles in a quasi-2D gas-solid fluidized bed:Computational particle fluid dynamics numerical simulation and post-processed by digital image analysis technique

Bubble dynamics properties play a crucial and significant role in the design and optimization of gas-solid fluidized beds.In this study,the bubble dynamics properties of four B-particles were investigated in a quasi-two-dimensional(quasi-2D)fluidized bed,including bubble equivalent diameter,bubble size distribution,average bubble density,bubble aspect ratio,bubble hold-up,bed expansion ratio,bubble radial position,and bubble velocity.The studies were performed by computational particle fluid dynamics(CPFD)numerical simulation and post-processed with digital image analysis(DIA)technique,at superficial gas velocities ranging from 2u_(mf) to 7u_(mf).The simulated results shown that the CPFD simulation combining with DIA technique post-processing could be used as a reliable method for simulating bubble dynamics properties in quasi-2D gas-solid fluidized beds.However,it seemed not desirable for the simulation of bubble motion near the air distributor at higher superficial gas velocity from the simulated average bubble density distribution.The superficial gas velocity significantly affected the bubble equivalent diameter and evolution,while it had little influence on bubble size distribution and bubble aspect ratio distribution for the same particles.Both time-averaged bubble hold-up and bed expansion ratio increased with the increase of superficial gas velocity.Two core-annular flow structures could be found in the fluidized bed for all cases.The average bubble rising velocity increased with the increasing bubble equivalent diameter.For bubble lateral movement,the smaller bubbles might be more susceptible,and superficial gas velocity had a little influence on the absolute lateral velocity of bubbles.The simulated results presented a valuable and novel approach for studying bubble dynamics properties.The comprehensive understanding of bubble dynamics behaviors in quasi-2D gas-solid fluidized beds would provide support in the design,operation,and optimization of gas-solid fluidized bed reactors.

Modeling of gas-solid flow in a CFB riser based on computational particle fluid dynamics

A three-dimensional model for gas-solid flow in a circulating fluidized bed（CFB） riser was developed based on computational particle fluid dynamics（CPFD）.The model was used to simulate the gas-solid flow behavior inside a circulating fluidized bed riser operating at various superficial gas velocities and solids mass fluxes in two fluidization regimes,a dilute phase transport（DPT） regime and a fast fluidization（FF） regime.The simulation results were evaluated based on comparison with experimental data of solids velocity and holdup,obtained from non-invasive automated radioactive particle tracking and gamma-ray tomography techniques,respectively.The agreement of the predicted solids velocity and holdup with experimental data validated the CPFD model for the CFB riser.The model predicted the main features of the gas-solid flows in the two regimes;the uniform dilute phase in the DPT regime,and the coexistence of the dilute phase in the upper region and the dense phase in the lower region in the FF regime.The clustering and solids back mixing in the FF regime were stronger than those in the DPT regime.

Effect of Curing Conditions on the Hydration and Performance of CFBC Ash Cementitious System

Circulating fluidized bed combustion （CFBC） ash can be used as supplementary cementitious material for concrete production for its high pozzolanic activity. We investigated the effect of curing conditions on the hydration and performance of CFBC ash-Portland cement system （30： 70, by mass） including hydration products, paste microstructure, linear expansion ratio, chemically combined water content and compressive strength. The results show that tobermorite rather than ettringite is generated under the condition of autoclaved curing. The expansion and mortar strength of the system cured in water is higher than those cured in air at a given age, and the strength and bulk volume may retract under the condition of air curing. In addition, autoclaved curing facilitates the increase of strength gain at early curing ages （the increase rate lowers down in the following ages） and the improvement of system volume stability. It is suggested that sufficient water is necessary for the curing of CFBC ash cementitious system, and autoclaved curing may be considered where volume stability is a primary concern.

A CFD Model for Fluid Dynamics in a Gas-fluidised Bed

A modified particle bed model derived from the two-fluid momentum balance equations was employed to predict the gas-fluidised bed behaviour. Additional terms are included in both the fluid and the particle momentum balance equations to take into account the effect of the dispersed solid phase. This model has been extended to two-dimensional formulations and has been implemented in the commercial code CFX 4.3. The model correctly simulates the homogeneous fluidisation of Geldart Group A and the bubbling fluidisation of Geldart Group B in gas-solid fluidised beds.

Influence of Negative Pressure Gradient on Pressure Distribution and Gas-Solid Flow Pattern of Solid Feed Systems

A series of experiments on a solid feed system was performed to investigate the effect of negative pressure gradient on the gas-solid flow pattern and hydrodynamic characteristics.Based on the non-fluidized gas-solid two phase flow and particulate mechanics in the standpipe,a method for predicting the pressure of the air passing through the recycle chamber and the pressure drop through the loop seal slit in these systems is also presented.The predicted pressure profile along the negative pressure gradient from the proposed model exhibits a good agreement with the experimental data.The experimental data show that the gas flow in the standpipe is always upward in the negative pressure gradients,while the direction ofthe superficial gas velocity through the recycle chamber of the loop seal does not affect the pressure drop in standpipe.It increases with an increasing negative pressure gradient.

Characteristics of fluidization and dry-beneficiation of a wide-size-range medium-solids fluidized bed

Wide-size-range medium-solids are used in a modularized coal beneficiation demonstration system with a gas-solid fluidized bed. The characteristics of fluidization and dry-beneficiation of the medium solids were studied. The numerical simulation results show that 0.15–0.06 mm fine magnetite powder can decrease the disturbances caused by the bubbles. This is beneficial to the uniformity of the gas-solid interactions and thus to the uniformity and stability of the bed density and height. The experimental results show that, with an increase in the fine coal content in medium solids, both the fluidization quality and the beneficiation performance of the bed decreased gradually. When the fine coal content was no more than 13%, a relatively high superficial gas velocity increased the beneficiation efficiency. When the content was more than 13%, part of the fine coal was separated, leading to product layers. The separation efficiency was therefore gradually decreased. The models for predicting the bed density standard deviation and the probable error, E, value were both proposed. The E value can reach to 0.04–0.07 g/cm^3 under the optimized experimental parameters. This work provides a foundation for the adjustment of the bed density and the separation performance of the modularized 40–60 ton per hour dry coalbeneficiation industrial system.

Entropy Production of Moving Bed Reactors

We present an entropy production formulationn for a gas-solid moving bed reactor,which we have not seen in any published reference. Apart from the traditional “flows” and “forces”,e. g., those for heat conduction and mass diffusions in each phase , we introduced the heterogeneouseffects: gas-solid heat and mass transfer, which lead to some new flows and forces in the entropyproduction formulation.

Validation of an improved two-fluid model with particle rotation for gas-solid fluidized bed

Gas-solid fluidized beds are widely applied in chemical and process engineering.It is of significance to establish a reasonable and effective mathematical model to explore the hydrodynamics of gas-particle system for industrial applications.As a less computationally demanding alternative to the discrete descriptions,two-fluid model considering kinetic theory of granular flow is often adopted to describe the fluidized behaviors of particles,but it cannot characterize the rotation of particles and its influence on the fluidized behaviors.In this study,to address the rotation effect of the fluidized particles,a two-fluid model combining the classical fluid and micropolar fluid is established,namely CMTFM.In the CMTFM,classical fluid is used to describe the motion of gas phase,while micropolar fluid is adopted to describe the motion of particle phase,and the rotation of particles and its influence on the hydrodynamics of the gas-particle system are characterized by the degree of freedom of microrotation and the improved drag force based on micropolar viscosities.In the calculation of the gas-solid bubbling fluidized bed,we investigated the influence of the microstructure parameters,particle-particle collision restitution coefficient and inlet velocity,and the results are compared to those from TFM model and experiments.Through the analysis,it manifests that pressure drop and expansion height of the fluidized bed under the consideration of the microrotation effect are closer to the experiments,which demonstrates the feasibility and advantage of the classical-micropolar two-fluid model.