Investigation on swirled pulverised coal flame in a semi-industrial scale furnace: experiments and mathematical modelling

The validation of mathematical models on semi-industrial scale plants plays a fundamental role in the developments of new combustion technologies. The tests on this size of rigs often determine whether an idea can be scaled up from the laboratory to real industrial application. In the past, the semi-industrial scale IFRF Furnace #1 has been regarded as a reference case for a numbers of mathematic modellers requiring validation of their computer codes. Now the key facility is the 3-5 MW furnace called Fo.Sper. (Fornace Sperimentale–experimental furnace), a replica of Furnace #1. IFRF and ENEL are currently using this rig to perform coal combustion tests. Indeed the optimization of coal combustion technologies is one of the main areas of interest for researchers nowadays. It is common accepted that coal will be one of the more important actors in the future fuels scenario because of the increasing price of oil and the need of many countries for the strategic differentiation of energy sources. In Italy, in particular, the importance of this topic can be witnessed by the fact that ENEL has started the construction of two new coal power plants. In addition industry will need to address the requirements of EU Directives on Carbon Emissions Trading and Kyoto Protocol and one of the most promising techniques to achieve these emission limits is Oxy-Coal combustion with recycled flue gas and CO2 sequestration. Coal and Oxy-Coal combustion tests will be carried out in Fo.Sper in the next months; this represents a unique opportunity to validate mathematical models that will be used to study the application of these techniques on industrial plants.