Numerical study of volatiles production, fluid flow and heat transfer in coke ovens

• A mathematical model is developed to describe flow-pyrolysis-thermo behaviors in the coking chamber of coke ovens.
• The simulated coal/coke bed temperatures agree with the experimental data.
• The evolutions of volatile product, bed temperature, gas temperature and flow path are obtained.

A two dimensional transient model of coal carbonization was developed to simulate the coking process including heat transfer and fluid flow in the coking chamber. The multiple independent parallel reaction model was applied to predict the volatiles production. The convective heat transfer between the coal/coke bed and the volatiles was taken into account in the model. The simulated bed temperatures agree with the experimental data. The evolutions of bed temperature, gas temperature, and gas component and flow path were further illustrated. For a typical 6-m-height coke oven, the average temperature in roof space over coal load keeps rising till 14 h; and then shows a slight increase at around 1150 K until the end of the coking process, when the central temperature of the coal/coke bed reaches 1273 K at about 18.1 h. Most gases move from the central plane of coking chamber in the early stage, while they move from the wall side in the later stage with the displacement of the plastic layer. This work is expected to provide useful information for optimizing the operations and design of coke ovens.