Numerical investigation of pulverized coal particle group combustion using tabulated chemistry

Abstract The ignition and combustion of coal particle groups are investigated numerically in a laminar flow reactor. The Flamelet Generated Manifold method is extended to account for the complex mixture of gases being released during devolatilization, which is calculated with a competing two-step model. A second mixture fraction is introduced to include the mixing with the second methane fuel stream. The interactions of the gas phase with particles are modeled within a fully coupled Euler-Lagrange framework. To investigate the influence of particle groups on ignition and combustion, successively increasing densities of particle streams have been analyzed. The ignition delay time is increased significantly by higher particle densities. This delay is validated successfully with the available measurements. Moreover, the shape of the volatile flame was found to be strongly influenced by the particle number density inside the flame. A transition from spherical flames around single particles to a conical flame around the particle cloud could be found in numerical results as well as in experiments. As the primary mechanism for the substantial ignition delay and the formation of the flame, the increased heat transfer from the gas-phase to the particle group, resulting in lower gas-phase temperatures, was identified.