Dynamic evolution of impaction and sticking behaviors of fly ash particle in pulverized coal combustion

Abstract This paper aims to reveal the mechanisms governing the impaction and sticking dynamics of fly ash particles in pulverized coal combustion. The modeling work is of relevance to experiments in a 25 kW self-sustained down-fired furnace, which provides a sequence of real deposit shapes as varied boundary conditions for CFD simulations. Although the formed ash deposit has a comparable length scale with the probe, it has little effect on the global impaction efficiency of newly-coming particles. However, as the deposit builds up, incident particles impact the deposit and probe at generally larger impact angles and smaller normal velocities despite the almost invariant global impaction efficiency. It results in an enhanced local sticking probability in the center region of the probe, but a decreased one in the lateral regions. The incident kinetic energy of newly sticking particles to the deposit exhibits a converse correlation with their impact angle. The relationship of the averaged local sticking probability as a function of the azimuthal angle of probe is illustrated. Finally, the effect of Reynolds number on global particle impaction efficiency is examined. A universal formula is proposed, which is of importance to bridge lab-scale experiments and practical applications.