New Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to the Study of Heat Transfer in Coal Dust Combustion

The existing theories of heat transfer in combustion chambers of boiler units fail to take into account a number of important factors that affect the reliability of results, and the methodological approaches to optimizing combustion processes can be revised in view of the spatial and temporal parameters of flame. Hence, the research aimed to improve the fundamental theoretical and methodological principles of studying heat transfer in coal dust combustion in the combustion chambers of industrial steam generators. The authors proposed to extend the theory of heat transfer with the mathematical description of particle size distribution of coal dust. In addition, the authors used the developed mathematical model of coal dust combustion based on a continuous curve of the particle size distribution in the ensemble. The mathematical model is consistent with the aeromechanical and thermal characteristics of flame. This work introduced a concept of flame continuum as a continuous medium, where the processes of combustion and heat transfer are studied. To achieve the research aim, in this paper, the methods of combustion chamber zoning, the equations of stationary and non-stationary heat conduction, radiation, and convective heat transfer, were used. These methods were tested on a number of high-temperature units.