Longzhou Qi

College of Energy and Power Engineering,

Huazhong University of Science & Technology,
Wuhan 430074, China

Shuhong Huang
College of Energy and Power Engineering,
A Compartmental Model for
Huazhong University of Science & Technology,
Wuhan 430074, China
Supercritical Coal-Fired Boiler
Yanping Zhang1
College of Energy and Power Engineering,
Systems
Huazhong University of Science & Technology, A compartmental furnace model for supercritical coal-fired boiler systems is presented in
Wuhan 430074, China this paper. Instead of the traditional lumped parameter method, the furnace is divided to
e-mail: zyp2817@hust.edu.cn seven compartments along the height based on the positions of the burner groups. The
lower six compartments correspond to the six groups of burners, respectively. This model
Xing Xu provides the possibility to connect the pulverization system and the furnace, the variabili-
College of Energy and Power Engineering, ty of the combustion property caused by changes of the pulverization system can be stud-
Huazhong University of Science & Technology, ied by switching the operating conditions. To evaluate the proposed model, simulation
Wuhan 430074, China results are compared with available data from a 600 MW supercritical coal-fired boiler
and reasonably good agreement is achieved. The simulation results also show that the
Yu Li compartmental model features a better precision than the lumped parameter modeling.
College of Energy and Power Engineering, This model allows for evaluating different control strategies and subsequently proposing
Huazhong University of Science & Technology, optimization strategies for boiler system operation. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4025959]
Wuhan 430074, China
Keywords: compartmental model, pulverization, furnace, simulation
Yong Wang
College of Energy and Power Engineering,
Huazhong University of Science & Technology,
Wuhan 430074, China

1 Introduction for thermal power generation units, every component of the power
plant is modeled through mass and energy conservation equations.
Considerable research attention has been given to power gener-
Kim and Gupta [4,5] propose a simple drum-type boiler model
ation units due to higher efficiency, better cost effectiveness, bet-
mainly using a signal flow diagram. Matsu [6] builds a new set of
ter use of energy resources and environmental concerns. With the
models of thermal power generation units for accuracy
operating parameters, such as steam pressure and steam tempera-
improvement in the dynamic characteristics using Variable Voltage
ture, getting higher and the systems getting more complicated, to
and Variable Frequency inverter. Eborn and Nilsson [7] from
ensure the optimal operating of units is more important. A numeri-
Oxford University present an object-oriented approach to model
cal simulation platform that can accurately illustrate the unit per-
and simulate a thermal power generation unit based on a model
formance is indispensable.
database called K2. Femminell [8] presents an application of a set
Large-capacity thermal power generation units are complicated
of codes running on a computer network for dynamic simulation of
thermal systems affected by different uncertain factors, such as
power generation units. As for the modeling of special subsystems,
status of the equipments, environmental temperature, and the
Wong and Niu [9] establish a boiler model focusing on heat transfer
characteristics of coal. A lot of simulation researches for thermal
by a zoning method. Zhang and Tewari [10,11] build a dynamic
power units have been done so far, and the accuracies of their
model for a condensate system. Zhou [12] builds an air preheater
results vary depending on different simulation platforms. The
model. Wang [13] establishes many independent models for auxil-
WITNESS [1] from the UK, ROSE from Canada, and CE2TRAN
iary machines such as coal mills and air preheaters. Seo [14]
from the USA are all popular simulation platforms in European
presents a model for feed-water system which is based on Alstom
and American areas. Tsinghua University and North China Elec-
models. Wang [15] builds a multilayer model of boiler economizer
tric Power University establish the ISSE [2] and STAR-90 plat-
to study the performances on off-design conditions. Bhambare [16]
forms, respectively. These simulation platforms, which are
uses a lumped parameter approach to simulate a coal-fired natural
expensive and mostly tailored for certain power generation units,
circulation boiler. Ilamathi [17] models the unburned carbon in bot-
are designed for training purposes. Although those platforms are
tom ash using an artificial neural network (ANN).
very good at imitating operational sequences of power units for
The lumped parameter method is commonly adopted for building
training, it is difficult for them to accurately capture the real per-
the furnace model by assuming the furnace to be filled the gas with
formance of thermal power units. The key point that differentiates
homogeneous thermal characteristics. It is satisfied for the aim of
the functions of different simulation platforms is the math models
capturing the dynamic behavior of the system when running in the
for power units and their components.
design point. There will be an unaccepted deviation between the
With regard to model developing and simulating of large-
model simulation results and the actual movement parameters
capacity thermal power units, Joao [3] presents a simulation code
when the boilers operation conditions fluctuate significantly. Wang
[18] and Chen [19] divide the furnace into three compartments
1
Corresponding author. (upper, intermediate, and lower area) to model them separately. Pei
Contributed by the Advanced Energy Systems Division of ASME for publication [20] and Cao [21] develop the compartmental model further by sub-
in the JOURNAL OF ENERGY RESOURCES TECHNOLOGY. Manuscript received December 2,
2012; final manuscript received August 19, 2013; published online January 15, 2014. dividing the combustor zone into four compartments by taking the
Assoc. Editor: Muhammad Mustafizur Rahman. furnace hopper as an independent region.

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 A new compartmental furnace model has been developed in this
paper to simulate the heat transfer performance of supercritical
boilers. The combustor of the furnace has been subdivided into six
compartments based on the positions of the burner groups. Each
compartment contains a group of burners which consists of four
burners setting at four corners of the furnace at one horizontal level.
In each compartment, the gas temperature and the heat transfer
with the water-wall or exchangers can be simulated. So the temper-
ature distribution of the furnace can be obtained, as well as the heat
distribution inside the furnace. The combustion condition in the fur-
nace can be accurately indicated by this model even when the burn-
ers or coal mills work at off-designed conditions.
Cycle-Deck systems are simulation systems for aircraft engines.
The system is designed as numerical tools for precisely estimating
the performance of aircraft engine systems in any running condi-
tions without real tests [22,23]. A Cycle-Deck systems of coal-fired
power generation units would be a valuable platform for estimating
the performance of the units. The compartmental simulation model
for furnaces in this paper is a part of a Cycle-Deck system for a
whole coal-fired power generation unit. Coupling with other models
of the power generation unit, the compartmental model of furnaces
can be used to study the thermodynamic characteristics of supercrit-
ical boilers, fully considered the interrelationships between systems.
The compartmental furnace model would contribute to research of
strategies for energy saving and emission reduction in the operation
of coal-fired power generation units.
2 Mathematical Models
The modeling object is a 600 MW supercritical boiler system of
a power generation unit located in Hubei Province, China. The
pulverization and combustion system consists of six roll-type me-
dium-speed mills, two cold primary air fans, positive pressure
direct-blowing pulverization system, six groups of burners, and
furnace. The boiler system, manufactured by Shanghai Boiler
Works, is a supercritical one with four corners tangentially fired
furnace. The six groups of burners (Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F)
are fixed inside the furnace at different altitude. Each group con-
sists of four burners which are set at the four corners of the fur-
nace at one horizontal level. Each coal mill is responsible for
making fuel for one group of burners.
The main modeling components in this paper are coal mills and
the furnace with focuses on the pulverization system and combus-
tion system. The boiler circuit system (evaporation system) and
the airgas system are not introduced here.
The Schematic representation of the boiler is shown Fig. 1. The
seven compartments of furnace also are shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 The Schematic representation of the four corners tan-
gentially fired boiler and the compartments of furnace
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2.1 Model of Pulverization System. The typical components
of pulverization system are coal feeders and coal mills. The model of
the medium-speed coal mill is mainly introduced here because the
mill has significant effects on the outputs of the pulverization system.
The inputs of coal mills include raw coal and supply air. And
outputs are air-coal powder. The mathematical model can be built
through the mass conservation equation, the energy conservation
equation, and the traditional mill capacity correction formula.
The mass conservation equation in coal mills is expressed as
follows [24,25]:
dM
Bi  Bf  Bo (1)
dt
where M stands for the mass of coal stored in the coal mill, t is the
time, Bi is the mass flow rate of the coal into the mill, Bo is the
mass flow rate of the pulverized coal out of the mill; Bf is the coal
combustion rate when the mill burning happens.
The mass flow rate of the pulverized coal out of the mill is
affected by many factors, including coal grind-ability, fineness of
the pulverized coal, ash content in the raw coal, water content in
the raw coal, particle size of the coal and so on. So, the mill output
capacity can be expressed as follows [26]:
Bo SKB Xf Xm Xt Xp Xg Xw Xd XR XA (2)
Here, it has fully considered the impact factors of the mass flow
rate of the pulverized coal out of the mill. S stands for the switch
index of the mill, which has two different values: 0 and 1. KB is
the elementary capacity of the coal mill, Xf, Xm, Xt, Xp, Xg, Xw, Xd,
XR, and XA stand for the impact indexes of the mill output
capacity as primary air flow rate, coal stored in the coal mill, inlet
temperature, grinding parts wear, coal grind-ability, moisture con-
tent of coal, particle diameter of pulverization coal, coal fineness,
and ash content in raw coal, respectively.
Electric Power Industry Ministry and Energy Department of
China have done several commercial and laboratory tests before,
on the basis of modification tables and curves of Babcock Com-
pany, B&W Company and Hanowski. The relationships between
grinding output of mills and these impact indexes are given out in
the form of graphs and tables based on these testing results
[27,28]. It is hard to construct model based on algorithm because
these impact indexes are all discrete. To solve this problem, the
impact index calculation formulas have been formulated by the
least square method in this paper. Several main impact index
calculation formulas are listed below.
(1) Modification formula of fineness of pulverized coal
 0:29
R90
XR (3)
20
where R90 is fineness of the pulverized coal, it represents
the percentage of the coal residue on the screen with a cell
size of 90 lm in the total coal.
(2) Modification formula of water content in the raw coal
Xw 1:0 0:011410  War (4)
where War is the water content of the raw coal. This modifi-
cation formula was initially proposed by Hanowski [25] in
Germany.
(3) Modification formula of particle size of coal
As for medium-speed coal mill, impact index Xd 1.
(4) Modification formula of coal grind-ability
 
HGI 0:57
Xg (5)
50
where HGI is the hard grove grind-ability index.
Transactions of the ASME
 (5) Modification formula of ash content of raw coal
There is a linear relationship between the ash content of the
raw coal Aar and the impact index XA. The ash content
impact index is achieved
 by using the least square method as
1; Aar < 20
XA (6)
0:005Aar 1:1; Aar > 20
(6) Modification formula of primary air flow rate
Xf Kf FNf (7)
where F is the air flow rate, Kf and Nf are coefficients
depended on the coal mills type and structural size,
Nf 2 0; 1.
(7) Modification formula of coal stored in the coal mill
Xm Km M (8)
where M is the coal stored in the coal mill, Km is a coeffi-
cient obtained by the coal mill test. Usually there is a linear
relationship between M and Km.
(8) Modification formula of inlet temperature
Xt Kt0 Kt1 T Nt (9)
where T is the inlet temperature of supply air, Kt0, Kt1, and
Nt are coefficients depended on the coal mill type and Char-
acteristics of coal. Nt 2 0; 1.
(9) Modification formula of grinding parts wear
Impact index Xp can take the value of 0.9.
The heat transfer process in coal mill includes two steps:
the heat transfer from the pulverized coal to the metal wall
and the heat transfer from the metal wall to the environ-
ment. The energy conservation equation in the coal mill
can be expressed as
dTo
Mc Cc Hf Cf Bi Cci Tci Fi Cfi Tfi Fs Cs Ts
dt
Fr Cr Tr Qh Ql  Bo Cco To  Fo Co To  Qe  Qm
(10)
where M, C, and T refer to coal mass in the mill, specific
heat capacity, and temperature, respectively; Hf refer to
mass of supply air; B and F are the mass flow rate of coal
and supply air, respectively. The subscripts i and o refer to
in and out of the mill; c, f, s, and r refer to coal, supply air,
sealing air, and smothering steam, respectively. Ql is the
heat generated in the grinding process, Qh is the heat gener-
ated in the mill fires, Qe is the heat generated in the evapo-
ration of water in coal, Qm is the heat transferred from the
air-coal powder to the metal of mill. Ql, Qh, and Qe are
assumed to be design values. Qm Km Am Tci Tfi
Tco Tfo =4  Tm , where Km is the heat transfer coeffi-
cient, Am is the internal equivalent area of the mill, Tm is
the temperature of the metal of mill.
2.2 Model of Furnace Compartment. The furnace is the key
component of the combustion system. Its thermal characteristics
and running conditions have important impacts on the perform-
ance of the coal-fired power generation units. Currently, one of
the general modeling methods of the furnace is the lumped param-
eter approach. It uses the average parameters to describe the per-
formance of the furnace and ignores the parameters distribution
inside the furnace. So a compartmental model of high accuracy is
proposed in this paper. The compartmental modeling method
gives adequate consideration on the space distribution of the
temperature and other parameters.
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The six groups of burners are fixed along the axial line from the
bottom to the top of the furnace. Each group with four burners is
regarded as a compartment. The space above the furnace arch can
be regarded as an independent compartment. Suppose that the flue
gas flows upward in the furnace. Heat exchanging between the
flue gas and the water-wall is radiation heat transfer. The radiation
between neighbor compartments is fully considered, while the
convection heat transfer is neglected.
The compartment model can be developed based on equations
mentioned before. The input parameters of each compartment
model include coal feed rate, the primary air temperature, the flue
gas temperature of the last and next compartments, and the flue
gas flow of the last and next compartments. The output parameters
of each compartment model include the flue gas temperature and
the flow rate.
Taking the flue gas of every compartment as a control volume,
the energy conservation equation and the mass conservation
equation can be used here. The mass conservation equation in the
combustion compartment is written as
dMgi
Wsi Wfi Wcoali Woili Woi1  Woi  WLi
dt
(11)
where Ws, Wf, Wo, and WL stand for the flow rates of the second-
ary air, primary air, fuel gas, outflow, and air leakage, respec-
tively. Wcoal and Woil are the input mass flow of coal and burning
oil. Mg is the mass of the flue gas. The subscript i refers to ith
compartment of the furnace. As for the energy conservation
equation, it can be expressed as
Wfi Cpf i tfi Qd Wcoali Wsi Cpsi Tsi Woili Qoil
Woi1 Cpgi1 Tgi1  Woi Cpgi Tgi  WLi CpLi TLi
 
d Mgi Tgi
 Qri Cpgi (12)
dt
where the subscripts f, s, g, and L stand for the primary air, blows
air, flue gas, and air leakage, respectively. Qr(i) is the total radia-
tion heat transfer of the ith compartment, T stands for the tempera-
ture. Cp stands for the specific heat at constant pressure. Qd and
Qoil is the low heat value (net calorific value) of the coal and burn-
ing oil.
It can be seen from Eq. (12) that the key point of this model is
how to estimate Qr(i), which is the total radiation of the ith com-
partment. Most conventional algorithms for the transfer of radia-
tion only calculate the radiation between the water-wall and the
flue gas. In order to improve the simulation accuracy, the radiation
between neighbor compartments is considered. Suppose that the
radiation between neighbor compartments is axial radiation [29],
while the radiation between water-wall and flue gas is lateral radi-
ation. Based on calculations, an important conclusion is that the
radiation between the two adjacent compartments is much greater
than that between separated compartments. So this paper only
considers the radiation between the adjacent compartments, and
just the radiation between the surfaces was considered. According
to the assumption mentioned above, the radiation equation can be
derived as
Qri Qmi Qi;i1 Qi;i1 Qi1;i Qi1;i
4 4 4
rei Awi Tfgi  Twi rei Ai1 Ai1 Tfgi
4 4
 rei1 Ai Tfgi1  rei1 Ai Tfgi1 (7)
where Qm(i) stands for the radiation between the water-wall and
the ith compartment; Qij stands for the radiation transfer from
the ith compartment to the jth compartment. r is the Stefan-
Boltzmann constant, e is the gray-body emissivity, T stands for
the temperature of flue gas, A stands for the effective radiation
JUNE 2014, Vol. 136 / 021602-3
 Table 1 Characteristics of three kinds of coal

Low heat Moisture Ash Coal

Item value (kJ/kg) HGI content (%) content (%) fineness (%)

Coal A 20,520 69 5 32.6 25

Coal B 21,820 60 3.4 16.9 22
Coal C 21,460 59 3.6 19.2 23

Fig. 2 The schematic plot of the model of each mill and corre- described by Eqs. (11)(14). The coal mill model consists of three
sponding compartment submodules. They are the mill capacity model, the exit temperature
model, and the heat transfer model of metal. The boiler furnace
area. The subscript w, fg, i stand for water-wall, flue gas, the ith model consists of seven submodules, which correspond to the seven
compartment of furnace, respectively. compartments of this furnace, and they are connected each other
Considering the flow of the flue gas in the furnace, suppose that with the inlet and outlet gas temperatures and gas flows.
the flue gas is incompressible ideal fluid. Employ the method The input parameters of the coal mill model include the coal
mentioned by Wang [18] to simulate the flow of the flue gas feed rate, the inlet temperature, the inlet air flow rate, and the coal
between neighbor compartments, the model can be expressed as characteristics. The output parameters include mill capacity and
the exit temperature of the coal mill. According to the configura-
Woi Wsi Wfi  WLi tion of the power generation unit, each coal mill model connects
" # to a furnace submodule. The model including the mill and the cor-
Mgi X 7 X
7
responding furnace compartment is shown in Fig. 2.
 P7 Wsi Wfi  WLi  Woi (14) Each compartment model of the furnace consists of three sub-
1 Mgi 1 1
modules, such as the radiation model, the outlet fuel-gas tempera-
ture model and the outlet fuel-gas flow rate model. It should be
Based on the model of pulverization system and furnace compart- noted that the top compartment of the furnace model is different
ment mentioned above, the total numerical compartmental furnace from the others. The top compartment of this model is the area
model can be mathematically described as where some super-heaters and reheaters are distributed. There is
        no coal or primary air that has been imported in. Heat exchanger
W0i W0i1 W0i1 B
Yi ; ; 0i (15) modeling is the primary concern in this compartment, so the spe-
tgi tgi1 tgi1 Ti cific model of the top compartment is not mentioned here.
As mentioned before, this combustion system is divided to
where F function represents the algorithm of the ith compartmen- seven compartments. Each of the lower six compartments is con-
tal furnace and the arrays in the Y function stand for the effect of nected to one mill. The coal powder from the coal mill is blown
the (i  1)th and (i 1)th compartments of the furnace, and the ith into the four burners of each compartment through pipelines. The
mill of the pulverization system, respectively. And the characteris- total compartmental model can be seen from Fig. 3, which shows
tics of the coal are considered in the Y function as well, such as the connection of the each compartment model.
net calorific value of the burning coal.

4 Verification of the Models

3 SIMULINK Models of the Pulverization and
Combustion Systems
The numerical model in this paper is established on the MATLAB/
SIMULINKplatform. It consists of two submodules, which are coal
mill model described by Eqs. (1)(10) and the boiler furnace model
Figure 3 represents the schematic plot of the integral system
model. The accuracy of the model should be verified to validate the
advantage of the compartmental modeling method. So, the accuracy
of the mill submodule and the integral compartmental model in dif-
ferent operation conditions of the power generation unit are

Fig. 3 The schematic plot of the connection of the total model

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 Table 2 Outlet temperatures and mill capacities combust different types of coal at 100% load

Coal A Coal B Coal C

Simulation Design Relative error Simulation Design Relative Simulation Design Relative
Item result figure (%) result figure error (%) result figure error (%)

Outlet temperature ( C) 77.8 78.5 0.8 78.9 81 1.3 78.6 80 1.7

Mill capacity (t/h) 55.2 56 1.4 48.6 49 1.4 49.1 50 1.8

Table 3 Input parameters of the verified simulation for the

compartmental model

Boiler rated evaporating capacity 100% load 75% load

Fuel feed rate (t/h) 267.1 181.3

Primary air temperature ( C) 329 301
Secondary air temperature ( C) 340 308
Air supply (kg/s) 465.6 347.5
Hot primary air supply (kg/s) 70.03 54.36
Regulation air supply (kg/s) 51.2 36.9
Water-wall temperature of compartment I ( C) 397 394
Water-wall temperature of compartment II ( C) 421 415
Water-wall temperature of compartment III ( C) 431 419
Water-wall temperature of compartment IV ( C) 439 428
Water-wall temperature of compartment V ( C) 432 423
Water-wall temperature of compartment VI ( C) 437 429
Fig. 4 Response curve of mill capacity under different opera-
tion conditions

Fig. 5 Response curve of outlet temperature under different Fig. 6 The temperature distribution in the furnace at different
operation conditions loads

achieved here. Moreover, the simulation results are compared with
the actual condition data of the running unit and a lumped parame-
ter model so as to verify the compartmental model.
4.1 Verification of the Mill Submodule. Coal A, shown by
Table 1, is the design fuel for the 600 MW power generation unit,
while two other kinds of coal (coal B and coal C) are put into
operation so as to compare with the designed fuel (coal A). The
characteristics of these three kinds of coal are shown in Table 1.
The coal and air supply of the six mills are different from each
other when operating. When a mill runs at 100% load, the inlet
temperature is 241  C. Input the characteristic parameters of these
three types of coal, the simulation results of mill capacity and out-
let temperature of pulverized coal are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 shows the designed figures and the simulation results of
mill capacities and outlet temperatures combusting different types
of coal at 100% load. It can be seen that the simulation results are
fairly close to design parameters, the relative errors are all less
than 2.0%. It fully reflects that this model is of good accuracy.
In fact, the operation load of mills is constantly changing, so
simulations under different operation loads are also necessary for
the verification of the mill submodule. Here, simulations on
changes of mill capacity and outlet temperature under different
loads while using coal A are carried out. As shown in Fig. 4, the
dashed line represents the given conditions of the fuel feed rate,
and the solid line stands for the simulation results of the mill
capacity.
As we know, in an actual running situation of a coal-
pulverizing system, the mill capacity always follows the fuel feed
rate changing, but there is a little delay, because of the storage
capacity. It can be seen in Fig. 4 that the mill capacity response
curve has the same varying trend with the change of fuel feed
rate, but it is slightly lower than the fuel feed rate, namely, it has
time delays. So, the pulverization model is in accordance with the
characteristic of the actual coal-pulverizing system.
Figure 5 shows the simulation results and the designed curve of
mill outlet temperature at different operation conditions. The sim-
ulation results and the designed curve match very well. The rela-
tive error ranges from 1.09% to 1.85%. And they are downward
trend when the fuel feed rate successive increases, and it tends
smoothly. The curves mean that the heat needed to dry and heat
the pulverized coal increases as the fuel feed rate increases, so the

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 Table 4 The flue out gas temperature at different loads of compartmental model and lumped parameter model

100% load 75% load

Flue out gas temperature ( C) Simulation results Design figures Relative error (%) Simulation results Design figures Relative error (%)

Lumped parameter model 1337 1366 2.0 1298 1330 2.3

Compartmental model 1365 1366 0.07 1325 1330 0.37

Table 5 Flue gas temperature of every compartment at 100% load of different operation modes

Item Operation mode 1 Operation mode 2 Operation mode 3 Operation mode 4

Group of burners included Groups B, C, D, E, F Groups A, C, D, E, F Groups A, B, D, E, F Groups A, B, C, D, E

Flue gas temperature of compartment I ( C) 230 1240 1241 1241
Flue gas temperature of compartment II ( C) 1207 1246 1301 1310
Flue gas temperature of compartment III ( C) 1296 1316 1306 1330
Flue gas temperature of compartment IV ( C) 1367 1347 1350 1360
Flue gas temperature of compartment V ( C) 1412 1389 1396 1410
Flue gas temperature of compartment VI ( C) 1367 1366 1367 1356

temperature goes down while other heat coming from outside of
the mill is almost nothing. The larger load, the larger impact of
the fuel feed rate on the outlet temperature.
4.2 Verification of the Compartmental Model. Verified
simulation is carried out at the 100% boiler rated evaporating
capacity and 75% boiler rated evaporating capacity, when all six
burner groups are put into operating. Because that the compart-
mental model for furnace is a part of the total model system of a
power generation unit, the temperature of the water-wall, which is
the output parameter of the steam-water system model, is consid-
ered as the boundary condition of the furnace model. The temper-
ature of the water-wall and other input parameters for the
compartmental furnace model are shown in Table 3.
The flue out gas temperatures of the compartmental model and
traditional lumped parameter model are compared in Table 4, the
simulation results of flue gas temperature of every compartment
in the furnace are shown in Fig. 6.
It can be seen in Table 4 that the relative errors of the compart-
mental model at the 100% load and 75% load are 0.07% and
0.37%, respectively, while the relative errors of the lumped pa-
rameter model are 2.0% and 2.3%, respectively. Obviously, the
compartmental model features a better precision than the lumped
parameter modeling.
Figure 6 shows that the two lines corresponding to 100% boiler
rated evaporating capacity and 75% boiler rated evaporating
capacity are similar. The flue out gas temperature increases from
lower compartment to higher compartment. The temperature gets
to the maximum at the fifth compartment and then decreases at
the sixth compartment, because that the pulverized coal stream
burns most fiercely at the fifth compartment while the heat gener-
ating in the sixth compartment transfers to the super-heaters
through radiation.
Except the most commonly seen operation mode analyzed
above, the boiler discussed in this paper also runs in other four
modes at 100% load. The compartmental furnace model is used to
simulate these four types of operation modes, and the flue gas
temperatures of each compartment are shown in Table 5.
The temperature data shown in Table 5 get to the maximum at
the fifth compartment, which is consistent with Fig. 6. The highest
temperature is achieved in operation mode 1 and operation mode
4. In other words, the heat transferred to the heat exchanger area
is most strong at operation mode 1 and operation mode 4. Also,
they are the most commonly used operation modes in the objected
power generation unit.
Obviously, the compartmental model provides much more
accurate distribution information about the performance of the
furnace.
5 Conclusions
In this paper, a compartmental model of the pulverization sys-
tem and the combustion system of supercritical boilers is proposed
based on MATLAB/SIMULINK. The model can be used to analyze the
thermal performance of large-capacity coal-fired power genera-
tion unit. A 600 MW supercritical boiler is taken as an example.
The accuracy of the compartmental model is verified by numer-
ical simulation. It gives adequate considerations on the distribu-
tion of the temperature and other important parameters. It can also
well indicate the thermodynamic characteristics inside the furnace
at different operation modes of the burner groups. So the compart-
mental model is more agreeable to the real furnace than traditional
lumped parameter model.
The seven compartments of the furnace are divided based on
the positions of the burner groups. Each compartment contains a
group of burners which consists of four burners setting at four cor-
ners of the furnace at one horizontal level. It allows to study the
combustion condition in the furnace due to different operative
conditions of coal mills and burners.
The compartmental model is a part of a Cycle-Deck model sys-
tem for a whole coal-fired power generation unit. The thermody-
namic characteristics and their changing tendency of thermal
power unit at different load conditions can be studied based on
this model system. Consequently, the performance at different
load conditions can be obtained accurately, which is a good foun-
dation for optimization operation of the pulverization and com-
bustion systems.
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the National Basic Research
Program of China (project No. 2009CB219803) and National Nat-
ural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 51021065).
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