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CFD MODELING FOR ANALYSIS OF CALCINERS IN CEMENT INDUSTRIES

Conference Paper · November 2011

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 CFD MODELING FOR ANALYSIS OF CALCINERS IN CEMENT
INDUSTRIES

S S Deshmukh*, V S Vitankar*, R M Sahu** and M Kuchya**

*Aditya Birla Science and Technology Co. Ltd., India

**UltraTech Cement Limited – R&D, India

ABSTRACT

Reduction in energy and pollution control is the key driver of the cement business for long term
sustainability. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technology has been widely used to analyse the
performance and reduce the energy consumption in the pyro section of the cement industry. In the present
work, detailed Calciner CFD model has been developed to analyse its performance. The model predicts
the air flow and coal combustion phenomena along with pollutants SOx and NOx. Novel methodology
has been adopted to predict the extent of calcination in the calciner.
The developed model is in qualitative agreement with plant observations. The model can be used to
optimize the calciner performance and design. The issues related to the modeling are also discussed in the
relevance to the development of the model.

1.0 Introduction

The cement industry is one of the most energy-intensive sectors within the world. It is one of the major
emitters of CO2 (from fuel combustion and raw meal calcinations), with estimates of 6% of the total
world CO2 emission. The International Energy Agency predicts that 1.4 Gt of CO2 has to be captured
from the cement plants worldwide by 2050. Reduction of energy and in turn, CO 2 emission is key driver
of the cement business from the point of view of long term sustainability.
UltraTech Cement Ltd. takes its responsibility to conserve the environment very seriously, and its
eco-friendly approach is evident across all spheres of its operations. Its major thrust has been to identify
alternatives to achieve set objectives and thereby reduce its carbon footprint. These are done through,
usage of alternative fuel and raw material, energy management, reduction in energy emissions.
Importantly, UltraTech has set a target of 2.96 per cent reduction in CO2 emission intensity, at a rate of
0.5 per cent annually, up to 2015-16, with 2009-10 as the baseline year. UltraTech has taken several
environment-related initiatives as part of its sustainability campaign. These include 2.88 per cent of net
specific CO2 emission has been reduced during the period 2008-2010, 1.6 million gigajoule (GJ) of
energy has been produced through alternative fuels (excluding pet-coke) during 2008-2010.
Aditya Birla Science and Technology Company Ltd, a corporate R&D for Aditya Birla Group
works in collaboration with UltraTech Cement Ltd. to meet its objective of energy reduction in cement
production.
One of the major breakthroughs in cement manufacturing was introduction of calciner and
preheater cyclones, which reduced the energy consumption drastically. Calciners have now become
integral devices in modern cement production processes. Use of calciner reduces the thermal load on kiln
and helps in enhanced capacity and thermal efficiency. Almost 95% of calcination is completed in the
calciner. The issues affecting the performance of a calciner are handling combustion, dust load and
formations of solid deposits due to the condensations of volatile matters. Beside chemistry of these
processes (calcinations, combustion, etc.) the flow and transport phenomena significantly govern the
calciner performance. Modelling the detailed processes in the calciner is extremely important to address
the issues in the calciner and improve its performance. Advanced
modeling techniques like CFD have been found to provide detailed C
information in cement pyro-process equipments. In recent years B
CFD has been used for analysis of rotary kiln [1], calciners [2,3] and also
for cyclones[4]. Although the complexities due to multiphase,
combustion processes, particularly for kiln and calciners, bring A
hurdles to replicate situation accurately, this gives never the less,
valuable inputs for the operation. Beside the flow and temperature
profiles, which is useful for process optimization CFD also enables
to predict the gas composition, which is important to decide on
pollutant emissions and use of alternative fuels. D
In the clinker formation calcination occurs at lower
temperature (823-1233K) compared to other transformations and it
is
the highly endothermic [5]:

CaCO3CaO+CO2 (H= -178kJ/mol) (1)

Hence, completion of this reaction before kiln, at lower temperatures

in a well mixed environment makes overall clinkerization faster and
efficient. However, handling high dust density, process built-ups on
inner sides of the walls are the probable operational issues.
In the view of above, and the versatile applicability of the
CFD model, the present work is focused on the development of a A
CFD model for analyzing calciner performance.

2.0 Calciner Details

A typical separate line calciner used in one of the UltraTech plant

was considered for the energy reduction and performance
optimization. The calciner consists of a cylindrical section at top to C
complete the combustion of coal and calcination reaction, a conical
middle section to mix the coal, raw meal and air, and a combustion
air inlet duct at the bottom. The geometry of the calciner is as shown
in Fig-1.Coal is fed in the bottom section geometrically opposite
locations (C). The raw meal was fed in the conical section at Combustion Air In
different levels and at non symmetrical locations (A and B) as
shown in the figure. The tangential outlet (D) for the material is Fig. 1: Calciner Geometry
provided at the top of cylindrical section. The design allows considered for simulation
sufficient residence time to ensure the complete coal combustion
and calcination reaction.
The normal operating conditions were taken for simulation. The preheated combustion air with
the mass flow rate 50 kg/s is fed from the bottom of the calciner at the temperature of 1200 K. The
particle sizes for both raw meal (20 m) and coal (90 m) was assumed to be constant. 0.0421 kg air at
343 K conveys 6.87 kg coal per sec was distributed equally for each coal inlet. The dimensions of the
calciner are summarized in Table-1.
 TABLE 1:
GEOMETRICAL INFORMATION OF THE CALCINER

Height of cylindrical section 26 m

B
Height of conical section 3.5 m
Height of Tertiary air inlet duct 2.4 m
Diameter of calciner 7m
Diameter of Tertiary air inlet duct 3m

3.0 Computational Model

A 3-D computational model based on Eulerian-Lagrangian approach was developed using commercial
software ANSYS-CFX. To model the turbulence, k- model was used, as this gives quite satisfactory
results. The coal combustion was modeled as described by Peters and Weber [6]. Additionally, reaction of
SOx formation due to high sulphur fuel was also included. In order to model NOx, the NOx formations
reactions were one-way coupled to the main simulation as there was no effect on mixture properties or
heat release due to these reactions. Gas-phase combustion was modeled using eddy dissipation and the P1
approach was used to model the radiation. Inter particle collisions were modeled using by Sommerfeld
model [7].
The overall model equations are summarized in Table-2.

TABLE 2:
CFD model equations
Sr.no.
Gas Phase
1. Mass Conservation
Equation .
2. Momentum
Conservation Equation . .
3. Energy Conservation
equation .

.
Discrete Phase
4. Particle motion
+Fc

-gas phase density; p-pressure; - shear stress; g- gravitational constant; vG – gas phase velocity; Scomb-
Coal Combustion Source; F-external force due to dispersed phase; T-gas temperature; k- gas conductivity,
hiJi- heat transfer due to species diffusion; -viscous dissipation; Secomb-combustion source; vp-
particle velocity; FD-drag force; -particle density; Fc- inter-particle collision force

Due to presence of large number of particles, physics involving combustion and solid as well as gas phase
reactions, modeling calciner becomes challenging in terms of computational efforts as well as arriving at
converged solution. To resolve this issue, a different approach was followed. The flow including
combustion with solid fuel (coal) was solved as a first stage, with two-way coupling between gas and
solids. The raw meal particles were then injected in the domain. Because of the smaller sizes of meal
particles (20 m), single way coupling was applied to the track the raw meal particle tracks i.e. flow of
meal was assumed to be exclusively driven by gas flow.
For the simulation 4.5 × 105 hexahedral grids were used. Coal and tertiary air inlets were given as
mass flow in boundary conditions, while outlet boundary was defined for exit of gas with particle escape.
The run was initially started for simulating the flow without particles. The coal particles were initiated in
the domain after 500 iterations, assuming the flow stabilization in the domain. The convergence criterion
was set to 1× 10-4. The study flow was assured by monitoring the gas phase temperature at a point in the
domain. Finally the raw meal particles were introduced in the domain in order to track their path.
To calculate the extent of calcination, following methodology was adopted:
The limestone calcination can be well represented by shrinking core model [8]. It is surface
reaction controlled mechanism. Hence, transport resistance from outer layer of the particle was neglected.
Accordingly, the reduction of the core radius can be represented as

(2)

where, rp is particle radius, kc is the rate of

calcination reaction based on surface area and B
is density of limestone. The extent of calcination
for a given particle can be represented by change
in radius over the time t, spent by it in the
domain was then calculated as

 t (3)

The temperature of the particle at the surface is

given as:

(4)

where, QR is radiation heat transfer to the

particle; QC is the convective heat transfer to the
particle; QL is the heat consumed by the
calcinations reaction; and T s is the particle
surface temperature and mp, Cp are the mass and
specific heat of the particle, respectively. No
conduction resistance within the particle was Fig. 2: velocity vectors representing the flow
assumed as the particle size was very small. profile in the calciner (A) Vertical plane passing
The residence time for the particle as perpendicular to fuel inlets (B) Vertical plane
well as the particle temperatures were extracted bisecting the fuel inlets
from the CFD simulations and the extent of
calcinations was thus calculated using in-house code.

4.0 Results and Discussion

The CFD model explained above was used for analyzing the flow and coal combustion inside the
calciner. The calcination was analyzed based on the model results.
4.1 Flow profile

The flow profile in the calciner and the operating conditions can be understood from the vector plots at
the vertical symmetric plane. Fig-2 shows the vector plot at two planes perpendicular to each other. It
indicates the circulation in the plane passing through fuel inlets while smooth flow in the other sectional
plane. Further, after the cone flow shows dominating gas flow from the wall region instead of central
region in the calciner.

4.2 Temperature profiles and combustion

The combustion occurring in the calciner can be represented by the temperature profiles in Fig-3. As there
was no specific burner placed inside, the profile does not show well shaped flame. It shows that the entire
domain as at higher temperatures. The highest temperatures are particularly, at the central region of the
calciner. This indicated the fuel particles are well distributed in the domain and sufficient fuel and oxygen
was available for the combustion. The actual temperatures in the operation would be much lower than the
predicted as, we did not account for calcinations at this stage. Fig.-4 shows the coal particle tracks in the
domain. The color code is provided as per the mass fraction of the char available at the particular location.
Thus the red color is for maximum char mass fraction, while blue is the minimum value. Thus, from the
figure it can be seen that very few particles were undergoing complete combustion in the calciner volume
and for the operating parameters considered the combustion would continue outside the calciner. This
would be the concern for the operation.

A B

Fig. 3: Temperature profile in the calciner (A)

Vertical plane passing perpendicular to fuel Fig. 4: Particle tracks of the coal particles
inlets (B) Vertical plane bisecting the fuel inlets
Further, handing large quantity of emission gases from the cement process has been a focus of
industries, in recent years. In addition, use of alternative fuel, like pet coke, pharmaceutical wastes, and
municipal wastes for producing cement has been also increased. The tentative effects of these practices on
environmental emissions can be not only quantified using CFD, but the solution measured can also be
tested using CFD models [9]. Fig. 5 shows the composition profiles in the calciner for SO 2, O2, and CO in
the calciner.

B
A
A B

A B

Fig. 5: Composition profile in the calciner in (A) Vertical plane passing perpendicular to fuel
inlets (B) Vertical plane bisecting the fuel inlets for SO2 (Top LHS), O2 (Top RHS), and CO
(Bottom).
4.3 Calcination

A B

Fig. 6: Particle tracks of the raw meal particles (A) particle time (B) gas temperature

Calcination is the most energy consuming reaction in the cement process. Use of calciner to complete this
before kiln increases energy efficiency. Completing calcination in an efficient way needs very well
mixing of raw meal with hot combustion gases. Further, it requires sufficient residence time to complete
the reaction. The particle tracks for raw meal particle is shown in Fig.- 6. The color in the figure A and B
shows the time spent by the particle and the surrounding gas temperatures in the calciner, respectively.
The raw meal particles were found to travel through the calciner from near cylindrical wall region, where
temperature was lower compared to the central region of calciner (Fig.-4). This depicts the importance of
keeping dispersion splash plate in the calciner near meal inlet. It should be noted that presence of splash
plate near the inlet was not accounted in this study. It can be also clearly seen that particles leave the
calciner at different times. Thus there exists exit age distribution for raw meal particles. As mentioned
earlier, the information of particle time and surrounding temperature was used to analyze the calcinations
reaction.
Based on the particle temperature, the reaction kinetics of calcinations and the shrinking core model,
progress of calcinations reaction can be tracked. The typical residence time distribution for 1000 raw meal
particles tracked is shown in Fig. 7. The average distribution residence time for the raw meal was
calculated as:

∑
∑
(5)
 Fig. 7: Particle residence time per 1000 particles

The average residence time for raw meal particles was found to be 3.24 sec. This was in good agreement
with the theoretical residence time of calculated from the operating data (3.43 s). The calculation showed
that sufficient temperature for calcinations was available in the calciner and desired calcination was
practically achieved. This can be attributed to the assumption of 20 m size particle for the raw meal.

5.0 Conclusions

In this work a CFD model has been developed for analyzing separate line calciner in cement industry. A
new methodology was developed to predict the extent of calcination. Lagrangian particle tracking was
used and coupling was done between coal combustion and gas flow. The raw meal particles were tracked
using one way coupling with the flow. The calcination was quantified using the particle time and local gas
temperatures in the calciner. Although, the model needs to be validated with the actual measurements,
which is in the future scope of this work, the results are in qualitative agreement with the plant
observations. The results showed for the selected operating conditions, coal particles could not be
combusted completely in the calciner and combustion would continue further in calciner outlet duct.
CFD gives the detailed information of flow, temperatures, species composition in the calciner, which is
much needed information for understanding the operation of calciner as well as arriving at optimum
 calciner performance. This can be also used in selecting the strategies on emission control, use of
alternative fuels and for the training purpose of plant engineers.

6.0 Reference:

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Schafer, S. and Hoenig, V. (2011). CFD simulation of the co-incineration of solid recovered fuels in
the precalciner. Cem. Int. 9, 54-63.

3. Fidaros, D.K.; Baxevanou, C.A.; Dritselis, C.D. and Vlachos, N.S. (2007). Numerical modeling of
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4. Gimbun, J.; Chuah, T.G.; Choong, T.S.Y., and Fakhru’l-Razi, A. (2005). A CFD study on the
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5. Djuric, M.; Ranogajec, J. (2002). Mathematical modeling in cement technology. In Advances in

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7. Sommerfeld, M.,(2001).Validation of a stochastic Lagrangian modeling approach for inter-particle

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8. Khraisha, Y. H. and Dugwell, D. R.(1992). Coal combustion and limestone calcination in a

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