RESEARCH ARTICLE

Large eddy simulation of a 660 MW utility boiler under variable load conditions

  • Haoshu SHEN 1 ,
  • Yuxin WU , 1 ,
  • Minmin ZHOU 2 ,
  • Hai ZHANG 1 ,
  • Guangxi YUE 1 ,
  • Junfu LYU 1
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  • 1. Department of Energy and Power Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
  • 2. Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City 84112, USA

Received date: 16 Oct 2019

Accepted date: 25 Nov 2019

Published date: 15 Mar 2021

Copyright

2020 Higher Education Press

Abstract

Large eddy simulation (LES) has become a promising tool for pulverized coal combustion with the development of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technologies in recent years. LES can better capture the unsteady features and turbulent structures of coal jet flame than Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes (RANS). The coal-fired power plants in China are now required to be operated in a wide load range and quickly respond to the electric grid. The boiler performance of variable loads should be evaluated in terms of flow, heat transfer, and combustion processes. In this paper, LES was applied to simulate a 660 MW ultra-supercritical boiler under BMCR (boiler maximum continue rate), 75%THA-100, and 50%THA-100 conditions. The predicted gas velocities agree well with the thermal calculation and the temperature error is less than 130 K. The simulation results show that the operation load has significant effects on the boiler performance. It is also proved that LES can provide guidance for the design and operation of advanced coal-fired boilers.

Cite this article

Haoshu SHEN , Yuxin WU , Minmin ZHOU , Hai ZHANG , Guangxi YUE , Junfu LYU . Large eddy simulation of a 660 MW utility boiler under variable load conditions[J]. Frontiers in Energy, 2021 , 15(1) : 124 -131 . DOI: 10.1007/s11708-020-0659-2

Acknowledgment

This work was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFB0602102) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51761125011).
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