A Study of Sawdust Combustion Using Different Combustion Models in FLUENT

Many power plants firing coal are now looking into the possibility of co-firing coal with a portion of biomass which is deemed carbon-neutral in order to reduce carbon dioxide emission. This study investigate the combustion of sawdust with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method using a commercial software FLUENT. Two different combustion models readily available in FLUENT were applied to study the combustion of sawdust at the near-injector region. The non-premixed combustion model and species transport model were the two models used and the results from the two models showed some significant differences. The temperature, oxygen mass fraction and water vapour mass fraction results from the two combustion models were discussed and compared.