A Reduced Order Model for the Design of Oxy-Coal Combustion Systems

Oxy-coal combustion is one of the more promising technologies currently under development for addressing the issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants. Oxy-coal combustion involves combusting the coal fuel in mixtures of pure oxygen and recycled flue gas (RFG) consisting of mainly carbon dioxide (CO2). As a consequence, many researchers and power plant designers have turned to CFD simulations for the study and design of new oxy-coal combustion power plants, as well as refitting existing air-coal combustion facilities to oxy-coal combustion operations. While CFD is a powerful tool that can provide a vast amount of information, the simulations themselves can be quite expensive in terms of computational resources and time investment. As a remedy, a reduced order model (ROM) for oxy-coal combustion has been developed to supplement the CFD simulations. With this model, it is possible to quickly estimate the average outlet temperature of combustion flue gases given a known set of mass flow rates of fuel and oxidant entering the power plant boiler as well as determine the required reactor inlet mass flow rates for a desired outlet temperature. Several cases have been examined with this model. The results compare quite favorably to full CFD simulation results.