Discussion on application of FLIC-Fluent coupled simulation technology on medium-scale and large-scale municipal solid waste incinerators

Abstract

Today, the world economy is in the stage of rapid development, followed by the rising quantity, the decreasing moisture content, and the increasing heat value of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). Since waste incineration has the advantages of excellent volume reduction effect, high resource utilization efficiency, and less secondary pollution to the environment, waste incineration disposal technology has received extensive attention worldwide. With the continuous increase of the urban population, the amount of sewage sludge is growing year by year. The process of the sludge incineration system is highly complicated, and the cost of construction and operation is high. The waste incinerator can process not only MSW but also sewage sludge. Therefore, the co-incineration of sewage sludge with MSW in the existing waste incinerator is a safe and effective way to dispose of sewage sludge. In this paper, the simulation results of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are analyzed for medium-scale and large-scale waste incinerators, characterized by high moisture content, high ash content, low heat value of sewage sludge, and incomplete combustion and high pollutant emissions in waste incinerators. With FLIC-Fluent coupled simulation method, the critical information such as temperature field, velocity field, concentration field of principal components, and the pollutant emissions can be predicted. Based on the CFD simulation results, the performance and structure of waste incinerators can be optimized, and the new products can be designed and developed.