COMBUSTION IN COAL FIRING BOILER WITH PT. INDONESIA POWER
Using Computational Fluid dynamics method to find the problem root cause and propose the solution
A few details
Project Description
Coal firing boiler is one of the most used unit to generate electricity for Coal power plant in Indonesia. In this case, one of PT. Indonesia power’s boiler unit encountered overheating in one side of its tubing (water-wall), which causes a tube failure.
The root cause of this phenomena can be varied, from too early steam phase change inside the tube, which makes the heat which should be used to change the water phase concentrated to the tube walls and caused overheating. Or it can be the combustion orientation inside the boiler was not properly directed and concentrated in the water-wall instead into the center of the boiler.
How we solved it
Our approach
This analysis involving a complex fluid mechanics and heat transfer phenomena, even complex chemical reaction (combustion) which make this analysis quite complicated or even impossible to be solved using manual analytical calculation or imagined intuitively.
One of the suitable method to be used is using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), which is computational modelling with actual dimension and operational conditions. This method can examine detailed flow, heat transfer, and combustion for every point in the boiler, but at the same time explain the phenomena comprehensively.
This method allows us to examine some parameters such as velocity, pressure, coal distribution, temperature, or even the emission gas.
In this project, our team AE Services with PT. Indonesia power used OpenFOAM software to conduct this CFD study.
