Numerical analysis of the thermo-fluid-dynamic field in the combustion chamber of an incinerator plant

As the interest for energy recovery from waste incineration has increased over the years, concern for the impact such processes have on the environment has also grown. To reduce such an impact, the legislation enforced in Italy and Europe imposes important restrictions on the temperature of the exhausts in the combustion chamber, which must be kept above certain values depending on the type of waste that is being incinerated, for a given period of time. Such conditions can be rather difficult and certainly very expensive to monitor with acceptable accuracy. In this work, a numerical approach is presented for modelling waste combustion in a full scale incineration plant. Both solid and gas phase reactions are considered. Various modes of heat and mass transfer between the waste bed, the air and the combustion products are taken into account, as well as radiation from the combustion chamber walls and the combustion products. The temperature distribution in the combustion chamber is obtained considering either forced or mixed convection. It is therefore shown that neglecting buoyancy effects may lead to appreciable errors. Verification of the code performance is based on comparison with the results of an experimental campaign at a full scale plant in Italy.