See

discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279270912

Effect of Furnace Pressure Drop on Heat

Transfer in a 135 MW CFB Boiler

ARTICLE in POWDER TECHNOLOGY JUNE 2015

Impact Factor: 2.35 DOI: 10.1016/j.powtec.2015.06.019

CITATION READS

1 36

4 AUTHORS, INCLUDING:

Man Zhang Junfu Lu

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University
35 PUBLICATIONS 127 CITATIONS 210 PUBLICATIONS 827 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Hairui Yang
Tsinghua University
107 PUBLICATIONS 507 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, Available from: Hairui Yang
letting you access and read them immediately. Retrieved on: 10 April 2016
 Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/powtec

Effect of furnace pressure drop on heat transfer in a 135 MW CFB boiler

Xuemin Liu, Man Zhang, Junfu Lu, Hairui Yang
Key Laboratory for Thermal Science and Power Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effect of the pressure drop across the furnace on heat transfer inside large scale CFB boilers was investigated
Received 14 January 2015 with a 1-D CFB combustion model developed at Tsinghua University. The results from the 1-D model agree well
Received in revised form 11 May 2015 with the eld test data carried out in a 135 MWe CFB boiler. It was found that, at a certain load and with xed size
Accepted 4 June 2015
distribution of the coal particles fed to the boiler, a decrease in furnace pressure drop yields an increase in furnace
Available online 11 June 2015
temperature and reduced heat transfer coefcient. According to the heat balance, when the pressure drop de-
Keywords:
creases by 1 kPa, the heat transfer coefcient is expected to decrease approximately by 2%. The increase in tem-
CFB boilers perature with decreasing pressure drop is less steep, when the boiler load increases or smaller sized coal particles
Pressure drop across the furnace are fed to the boiler. In both cases, more ne particles are carried to the upper parts of the furnace which results in
Heat transfer coefcient a more uniform solid volume fraction distribution along the furnace height. The inuence of the pressure drop on
Furnace temperature heat transfer by changing the solid suspension density weakens. Operation of the bed at relatively low pressure
Suspension density drop by reducing the size of coal particles will ensure adequate heat transfer.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Circulating uidized bed (CFB) boilers have been widely commer-
cialized in the past three decades due to their advantages in fuel exibil-
ity and lower cost of emission control compared to the pulverized coal
boilers. However, CFB boilers have shown deciencies such as high
auxiliary power consumption and wear related problems [13]. To
solve these problems the idea of reconstructing the ow patterns in
CFB boilers was proposed by Tsinghua University [4,5]. CFB boilers are
operated under relatively low pressure drop across the furnace by
controlling the size of coal particles fed into the boiler and by reducing
the quantity of ineffective materials in the bed [2]. When the pressure
drop changes, the ow patterns in CFB boilers will be changed and
the combustion prole and heat transfer will change correspondingly
[1,2]. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of the pressure
drop on heat transfer.
In recent years, a large interest has been focused on the characteriza-
tion of heat transfer in CFB boilers. Zhang et al. (2013) and others have
performed experimental investigation and model validation of the heat
transfer coefcient [611]. It was found that the heat transfer coefcient
is a function of the boiler load, temperature, solid suspension density,
particle size, geometrical parameters, etc. [1215]. For example, the
heat transfer coefcient increases signicantly when the solid suspen-
sion density is increased [16,17]. By increasing the boiler load, the
heat transfer coefcient of different heating surfaces is gradually
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 62773384.
E-mail address: yhr@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn (H. Yang).
increased [18,19]. Finer particles show higher heat transfer coefcient
than coarser ones [20]. With increasing temperature, thermal conduc-
tivity of the uidizing gas, solid heat capacity and radiative heat transfer
increase accordingly, leading to an increase of the heat transfer
coefcient [2124].
In this study, the effect of the pressure drop on the heat transfer in
CFB boilers was evaluated. Changes in the pressure drop directly
inuences the solid density prole in the furnace and therefore affects
the heat transfer coefcient of heating surfaces. A 1-D CFB combustion
model developed at Tsinghua University was used in this study
[2528] to investigate the inuence of pressure drop and the results
were validated with eld tests carried out in a 135 MWe CFB boiler in
the city of Baode, in the Shanxi province in China. The temperatures in
the furnace under different pressure drops, boiler loads and size
distributions of the coal particles were analyzed.
2. Model description
The 1-D combustion model consists of a mass balance, accounting
for chemical reactions and an energy balance where each part has
several sub-models. The furnace is divided into several cells along
the height. The mass balance of solid ow (ash, char and lime) and
gas components (O 2, SO 2 , CO, etc.) is established in each cell. The
solid mass balance includes an ash formation model, an attrition
model, and a segregation model. Details of these models can be
found in the previous studies [25,29]. The attrition characteristics
of lime are treated the same as of ash. All the bed materials are
classied by age and size. For each category of particles, the mass and
reaction equations are established respectively. In cell i, the mass

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2015.06.019
0032-5910/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
20 X. Liu et al. / Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924

balance of particles in size group j and age group k should satisfy the
following equation:








m f a;i; j;k mra;i; j;k mda;i; j;k mup;i1; j;k mup;i; j;k mdown;i1; j;k mdown;i; j;k




mshift;i; j;k mk1k mkk1 0
1

where denotes mass ux rate, subscripts fa, ra, da, up, down, and shift
represent fed ash, recirculating ash, drainage of bottom ash, upwards
solid ux, downwards solid ux and mass ux caused by attrition
respectively.
The reaction model accounts for volatile release, char combustion
and desulfurization. Composition of the volatile matter is considered
as six species: CO, CO2, H2, CH4, SO2 and N2 [30]. The char combustion
reaction follows as:
   
1 2 2
C O2 2 CO 1 CO2 2

Fig. 1. Comparison of model calculation with eld test data of pressure drop proles along
the furnace height.
in which can be calculated by the model proposed by Ross et al. [31].
The calculation method solves the mass balance rst and then the
reaction model, because the mass fraction of char in bed inventory is rel- with a value of 0.5. Cpc is the convective coefcient of the particles,
atively low and the effect of reactions on the mass balance can be which can be calculated from:
neglected [26].

For a certain cell, the energy balance can be established under steady C pc 1 exp C c C p n 7
operating conditions. Heat is transported in and out of the cell by the gas
components and solid particles at various temperatures. At the same where Cc and n are constants, Cp is the solid suspension density. In
time, there are some exothermic reactions (char combustion, volatile general, the range of Cc is 0.150.3, and n is 0.1.
combustion and desulfurization reaction) and an endothermic reaction The parameters such as the exponential decay constant and segrega-
(limestone calcination). The heating surfaces in the furnace are con- tion coefcients were obtained from eld tests. Determination of these
stantly absorbing heat. Based on the results of mass balance and reac- values was performed by comparing results from calculation with eld
tion model, the heat transfer caused by ow and reactions can be test data (particle size distribution of the bed materials and pressure
calculated. The energy balance can further be solved with the heat drop along the furnace height) [25]. By optimization of the parameters,
transfer model proposed by Lu et al. [27,28]. the 1-D model can predict the pressure drop and temperature distribu-
The thermal resistance in the heat transfer includes the resistance of tion under different loads which agree well with the eld test data, as
the bed side, the working medium side, the heating surface and the ad- shown in Fig. 1.
ditional resistance, expressed as:
3. Field tests
1
K 3
1 1 H t 1 The eld tests were carried out in a 135 MW CFB boiler, as shown in
as
nb f H f Fig. 2. The combustion chamber has a cross-section of 16.24 7.21 m
and the bottom part is covered by refractory. Two insulated cyclones
in which the nominal heat transfer coefcient nb can be calculated from with the diameter of 8.2 m are located between the furnace and the
the heat transfer coefcient at bed side b, the pitch between two tubes,
n thickness and the contaminated condition.
The heat transfer coefcient b can be split into a radiative heat
transfer coefcient and a convective heat transfer coefcient, expressed
as:

b r c : 4

The convective part is:

c gc pc 5

where gc is the convective heat transfer coefcient in the gas phase, pc

is the convective heat transfer coefcient for the particles, which can be
expressed as:

u m
f p
pc C Pc c o : 6
5

p
c 0 is the theoretical convective heat transfer coefcient for the
particles, at the condition of initial uidization, inuenced by the
size and temperature of the particle and the layout of the heating
surface. uf is the uidizing velocity and m is the uidizing factor [6] Fig. 2. General drawing of the test CFB boiler.
 X. Liu et al. / Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924 21

Table 1
Main design parameters.

Item Units Values (BECR)

Main steam ow rate t/h 426

Main steam pressure MPa 13.73
Main steam temperature C 540
Reheat steam ow rate t/h 353.68
Reheat steam pressure MPa 2.493
Reheat steam inlet temperature C 318.2
Reheat steam outlet temperature C 540
Air temperature C 20

Table 2
The proximate analysis and ultimate analysis of coal.

Proximate analysis (as received) Ultimate analysis (as received)

Component Weight (%) Component Weight (%)

Moisture 10.03 C 32.81 Fig. 4. Effect of pressure drop on temperature with size distribution 1.
Ash 46.23 H 2.64
VM 22.02 O 7.11
FC 21.72 N 0.76 drop decreases. The steam parameters can be assumed constant. When
LHV: 13.20 MJ/kg S 0.42 the furnace temperature increases, it means that the temperature differ-
ence from bed to working medium T increases. At the same time, the
heat ux Q remains unchanged which means that the heat transfer co-
second pass. The boiler's main design parameters are listed in Table 1. efcient K decreases. From this it can be concluded that the heat transfer
To monitor the boiler performance, temperature and pressure are mea- coefcient decreases with the pressure drop.
sured inside the furnace chamber. The proximate analysis and ultimate
analysis of coal are listed in Table 2.
In order to study the effect of the pressure drop on the heat transfer, Q KH t T 8
the temperatures under various pressure drops, boiler loads and size
distributions of the coal particles were investigated. Coal samples
were sieved for 3 min with vibration amplitudes of approximately In the furnace, the pressure drop represents the bed inventory. At a
2 mm and mesh diameters of 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 mm. The maximum certain load, decreasing the pressure drop reects the decrease of aver-
value of the weighing scale is 10 kg and the accuracy is 0.1 g. Three dif- age solid suspension density in the furnace, especially in the transition
ferent particle size distributions are shown in Fig. 3. zone, as shown in Fig. 7. Since the solid suspension density is the most
important factor for heat transfer in CFB boilers, the heat transfer coef-
cient decreases correspondingly with the pressure drop.
4. Results and discussion The heat transfer coefcient from calculation along the furnace is
shown in Fig. 8. The coefcient remains very low in the bottom part be-
4.1. Effect of pressure drop cause of refractory. However, in other zones, it changes a lot with the
pressure drop. The local heat transfer coefcient in the transition zone
The inuence of the pressure drop on the average temperature in the increases by 56% as the pressure drop decreases by 1 kPa. In the
tapered part at various loads and with different particle size distribu- upper furnace, the coefcient has a relatively small change due to the
tions is shown in Figs. 46. The results from calculation are in good low solid suspension density. According to the heat balance, the average
agreement with the eld test data. At a certain load and with xed par- heat transfer coefcient in the furnace is expected to decrease approxi-
ticle size distribution, the furnace temperature increases as the pressure mately by 2% when the pressure drop decreases by 1 kPa.

Fig. 3. Three different size distributions of coal particles. Fig. 5. Effect of pressure drop on temperature with size distribution 2.
22 X. Liu et al. / Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924
Fig. 6. Effect of pressure drop on temperature with size distribution 3.
4.2. Effect of load
Using a xed particle size distribution, the temperature signicantly
increases with increasing boiler load. At a higher boiler load, the in-
crease in temperature with decreasing pressure drop becomes less
steep, as shown in Figs. 46. When the load increases, both the ow
rates of primary air and secondary air increase. As a result, the solid
suspension density (or solid volume fraction) in the upper furnace in-
creases and correspondingly decreases in the bottom part, as shown in
Fig. 9. The solid volume fraction distribution along the furnace tends
to be more uniform compared to the case for lower loads. Therefore,
the inuence of the pressure drop on the convective heat transfer, by
changing the solid suspension density, weakens. At the same time, the
temperature in the furnace increases at a higher load, which is in favor
of the radiative heat transfer. Combining the two aspects above, the in-
uence of the pressure drop on the heat transfer is reduced at a higher
load.
Fig. 7. Solid volume fraction along the furnace under different pressure drops (size
distribution 2, 120 MW).
Fig. 8. Heat transfer coefcient along the furnace under different pressure drops (size
distribution 2, 120 MW).
4.3. Effect of particle size distribution
According to the results from calculation under different particle size
distributions, the temperature increases with decreasing pressure drop.
Such increase is less steep when the smaller size coal particles are fed to
the boiler, as shown in Fig. 10. The share of ne particles increases, lead-
ing to an increase of the solid suspension density in the upper furnace
and a decrease in the bottom part correspondingly. The distribution of
the solid volume fraction along the furnace tends to be more uniform
and the inuence of the pressure drop on the heat transfer, by changing
the solid suspension density, is reduced. This is similar to the case with a
higher load. In addition, reducing particle size can also improve the
Fig. 9. Solid volume fraction along the furnace under different loads (size distribution 2,
3500 Pa).
 X. Liu et al. / Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924 23

Cc constant
n constant
Cp solid suspension density
Q heat absorption capacity
T temperature difference from bed to working medium

Subscripts
i cell number
j size group
k age group
fa feed ash
ra recirculating ash
da drainage of bottom ash
up upwards solid ux
down downwards solid ux
shift mass ux caused by attrition

Fig. 10. Effect of pressure drop on temperature with different size distributions (80 MW). Acknowledgments

Financial support of this work by Key Project of the National Twelve-

convective heat transfer to the heating surface [20]. Therefore, opera- Five Year Research Program of China (2012BAA02B01) and the National
tion of the bed at relatively low pressure drop, by reducing the size of Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (2014CB744305) are
coal particles will ensure adequate heat transfer and avoid too high gratefully acknowledged.
temperature.

5. Conclusions References

[1] X. Xiao, H. Yang, H. Zhang, et al., Research on carbon content in y ash from circu-
Effect of the pressure drop on the heat transfer in a 135 MW CFB
lating uidized bed boilers, Energy Fuel 19 (2005) 15201525.
boiler was investigated with a 1-D combustion model. The results [2] H. Yang, H. Zhang, S. Yang, et al., Effect of bed pressure drop on performance of a CFB
from calculations agree well with the eld test data. At a certain boiler boiler, Energy Fuel 23 (2009) 28862890.
load and with xed particle size distribution, the temperature increases [3] S. Yang, H. Yang, H. Zhang, et al., A transient method to study the pressure drop
characteristics of the cyclone in a CFB system, Powder Technol. 192 (2009)
with a decrease of the pressure drop. When the pressure drop decreases 105109.
by 1 kPa, the heat transfer coefcient is expected to decrease approxi- [4] H. Yang, G. Yue, Updated design and operation experience of CFB boilers with ener-
mately by 2%. When the boiler load increases or the smaller size coal gy saving process in China, VGB Powertech 7 (2011) 4953.
[5] H. Yang, G. Yue, J. Lu, et al., An update of circulating uidized bed combustion (CFB)
particles are fed to the boiler, the distribution of the solid volume frac- technology in China, VGB Powertech 12 (2012) 7579.
tion along the furnace tends to be more uniform. As a result, the increase [6] R. Zhang, H. Yang, N. Hu, et al., Experimental investigation and model validation of
in temperature with decreasing pressure drop is less steep. Combining the heat ux prole in a 300 MW CFB boiler, Powder Technol. 246 (2013) 3140.
[7] J. Krzywanski, W. Nowak, Modeling of heat transfer coefcient in the furnace of CFB
the impact of boiler load and particle size, the inuence of the pressure boilers by articial neural network approach, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 55 (2012)
drop on the heat transfer weakens. Operation of the bed at relatively 42464253.
low pressure drop by reducing the size of coal particles will ensure ad- [8] O. Molerus, Fluid dynamics and its relevance for basic features of heat transfer in cir-
culating uidized beds, Proc. 4th Int. Conf. Circulating Fluidized Beds, AIChE, New
equate heat transfer and avoid too high temperature. York 1994, pp. 285390.
[9] P. Basu, Combustion of coal in circulating uidized-bed boilers: a review, Chem. Eng.
Nomenclature Sci. 54 (1999) 55475557.
[10] J. Pan, D. Yang, G. Chen, et al., Thermal-hydraulic analysis of a 600 MW supercritical
mass ux rate
CFB boiler with low mass ux, Appl. Therm. Eng. 32 (2012) 4148.
k 1 k mass ux rate of particles from age group k 1 to k [11] B. Xiong, X. Lu, R.S. Amano, et al., Gassolid ow in an integrated external heat ex-
k k + 1 mass ux rate of particles from age group k to k + 1 changer for CFB boiler, Powder Technol. 202 (2010) 5561.
mechanical factor [12] L.R. Glicksman, Circulating uidized bed heat transfer, Circulating Fluidized Bed
Technology II1988. 1329.
K heat transfer coefcient [13] B.A. Andersson, B. Leckner, Local lateral distribution of heat transfer on tube surface
nb nominal heat transfer coefcient from bed to the wall of membrane walls in CFB Boilers, Circulating Fluidized Bed Technology IV1994.
b heat transfer coefcient at bed side 311315.
[14] J.D. Pagliuso, G. Lombardi, L. Godstein, Experiments on the local heat transfer char-
f heat transfer coefcient at working medium side acteristics of a circulating uidized bed, Exp. Thermal Fluid Sci. 20 (2000) 170179.
Ht total surface area at ue gas side [15] C. Breitholtz, B. Leckner, A.P. Baskakov, Wall average heat transfer in CFB boilers,
Hf total surface area at working medium side Powder Technol. 120 (2001) 4148.
[16] J.C. Chen, J.R. Grace, M.R. Golriz, Heat transfer in uidized beds: design methods,
as additional thermal resistance Powder Technol. 150 (2005) 123132.
1 steel cylinder thickness [17] M. Zhang, R. Bie, Z. Yu, et al., Heat ux prole of the furnace wall of a 300 MWe CFB
heat conductivity of steel cylinder boiler, Powder Technol. 203 (2010) 548554.
[18] M. Zhang, H. Wu, Q. Lu, et al., Heat transfer characteristics of uidized bed heat
b heat transfer coefcient from bed to wall
exchanger in a 300 MW CFB boiler, Powder Technol. 222 (2012) 17.
r radiative heat transfer coefcient [19] H. Wu, M. Zhang, Y. Sun, et al., Research on the heat transfer model of platen heating
c convective heat transfer coefcient surface of 300 MW circulating uidized bed boilers, Powder Technol. 226 (2012)
8390.
gc gas convective heat transfer coefcient
[20] A. Blaszczuk, W. Nowak, Bed-to-wall heat transfer coefcient in a supercritical CFB
pc particle convective heat transfer coefcient boiler at different bed particle sizes, Int. J. Heat Mass Transf. 79 (2014) 736749.
p
c 0 theoretical particle convective heat transfer coefcient [21] L. Jestin, P. Meyer, C. Schmitt, Heat transfer in a 125 MWe CFB boiler, Proceedings of
uf uidizing velocity the Engineering Foundation Conference, 1992.
[22] J.H. Jeon, S.D. Kim, S.J. Kim, Y. Kang, Combustion and heat transfer characteristics in a
m uidizing factor square internally circulating uidized bed combustor with draft tube, Fuel 87
Cpc particle convective coefcient (2008) 37103713.
24 X. Liu et al. / Powder Technology 284 (2015) 1924
[23] D. Mandal, D. Sathiyamoorthy, M. Vinjamur, Heat transfer characteristics of lithium-
titanate particles in gassolid packed uidized bed, Fusion Sci. Technol. 62 (2012)
150156.
[24] D. Mandal, D. Sathiyamoorthy, M. Vinjamur, Experimental investigation of heat
transfer in gassolid packed uidized bed, Powder Technol. 246 (2013) 252268.
[25] H. Yang, G. Yue, X. Xiao, et al., 1D modeling on the material balance in CFB boiler,
Chem. Eng. Sci. 60 (2005) 56035611.
[26] N. Hu, Z. Li, H. Yang, et al., Development and validation of a 1D CFB boiler combus-
tion model, Proceedings of the 21th International Conference on Fluidized Bed
Combustion, Napoli 2012, pp. 962969.
[27] J. Lu, J. Zhang, G. Yue, et al., Heat transfer coefcient calculational method for a heat-
er in a circulating uidized bed furnace, J. Tsinghua Univ. (Sci. Technol.) 40 (2000)
9497 (in Chinese).
[28] J. Lu, J. Zhang, G. Yue, et al., Method of calculation of heat transfer coefcient of the
heater in a circulating uidized bed furnace, Heat Transf. Asian Res. 31 (2002)
540550.
[29] A. Blaszczuk, J. Leszczynski, W. Nowak, Simulation model of the mass balance in a su-
percritical circulating uidized bed combustor, Powder Technol. 246 (2013) 317326.
[30] D. Merrick, Mathematical models of the thermal decomposition of coal: 1. The
evolution of volatile matter, Fuel 62 (1983) 534539.
[31] I.B. Ross, M.S. Patel, J.F. Davidson, Temperature of burning carbon particles in uid-
ized beds, Trans. Inst. Chem. Eng. 59 (1981) 8388.