Numerical modeling of repowering of a thermal power plant boiler using plasma combustion systems

In this study, numerical analyses of repowering of a thermal power plant boiler using plasma combustion systems were performed. In order to reduce the energy consumption of the power plant, fuel-oil burners were disassembled and plasma combustion systems were installed on the surfaces of the boiler. The integration procedure, design data, and boundary conditions were given in detail. Superheater, economizer and tubes (dome) were modeled as porous media and the pressure losses of each section were compared with design data. The power plant was modeled according to the design parameters using the Thermoflex commercial software, in order to find the heat loads of each boiler section. These results were used as input data in CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) code. ANSYS Fluent was used for numerical analyses. Temperature contours, velocity vectors, and isosurfaces of temperature in the furnace were compared. According to the results, the integration of the plasma combustion systems to the boiler slightly decreases the velocities at the inlet of each domain. Additional energy from the plasma combustion system has no reverse effect in the case of overheating, especially for convective surfaces.