Numerical analysis of wood biomass packing factor in a fixed-bed gasification process

The biomass gasification process in fixed bed was studied by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerical analysis. The aim was to evaluate the effect of the biomass packing factor on the thermochemical process. The fuel-wood used was Jacaranda Copaia in various shapes: chips, cylinders, and cubes with packing factors (PF) of 0.38, 0.48, and 0.59, respectively. The mathematical model is a transient 2D CFD model, which was developed through the implementation of User Defined Functions in ANSYS-Fluent. The model was extended to simulate the gasification process by expanding the chemical kinetic mechanism and by adapting the stages of pyrolysis, oxidation, and reduction. The model was validated with experimental data. The average relative error between experimental and numerical data was 5.45%. By means of the sensitivity analysis, it was found that with an increase in the packing factor from 0.38 to 0.59, the absorption of radiative heat transfer increases by 27% leading to increase the solid temperature in the reaction front, but due to a lower penetration of radiation, the drying and pyrolysis reaction rates decrease. But nevertheless, the higher solid temperature with packing factor favors the convective solid-gas heat transfer in the drying stage.