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Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 20372042
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: The performance of electrostatic precipitator (ESP) is signicantly affected by its complex ow distribu-
Received 17 October 2007 tion arising as a result of its complex inside geometry. In the present study the gas ow through an ESP
Accepted 21 October 2008 used at a local thermal power plant is modeled numerically using computational uid dynamics (CFD)
Available online 18 November 2008
technique to gain an insight into the ow behavior inside the ESP. CFD code FLUENT is used to carry
out the computations. Numerical calculations for the gas ow are carried out by solving the Reynolds-
Keywords: averaged NavierStokes equations coupled with the ke turbulence model equations. The results of the
Thermal power plant
simulation are discussed and compared with on-site measured data supplied by the power plant. The
Electrostatic precipitator
Turbulent ow
predicted results show a reasonable agreement with the measured data. The model developed is a novel
Flow distribution tool for the thermal power plant to predict the effect of possible modications made to the ESP design on
CFD the ow pattern.
Fluent 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction side the ESP. Most of them are focused on 2D models based on sim-
plied geometrical arrangements and ignored the effect of sudden
Over recent years the particle emissions from process industries expansion in geometrical conguration of an ESP. Zhao et al. [4]
have been attracting more attention due to an anticipation of developed a simple 2D model which consists of a single discharge
upcoming strict environmental protection agency (EPA) regula- wire and two parallel plates. The 2D model developed by Skodras
tions. Industrial pollution can be controlled by energy recovery et al. [5] consists of three-wires and two parallel plates arrange-
and conservation [1], replacing conventional industrial processes ments. Nikas et al. [6] simulated a 3D ow inside a laboratory scale
with continuous and energy efcient systems [2], or performance precipitator of three-wire and two-plate arrangements. Varonos
optimization of the emission control devices [3]. Electrostatic pre- et al. [7] developed a 3D model and introduced smoothing grids
cipitators (ESP) are the most common, effective and reliable partic- to improve the ow characteristic of an ESP. But they simplied
ulate control devices which are capable of handling large gas their model by introducing a porous region instead of creating
volumes with a wide range of inlet temperatures, pressures, dust any physical collecting plates in their CFD model. The numerical
volumes and gas conditions. ow model of an ESP developed by Schwab and Johnson [8] re-
The performance of ESP is affected by the uid ow character- placed all the collection plates inside the ESP with equivalent resis-
istics inside this device wherein the shape, size and arrangement tance. Gallimberti [9] also used local loss coefcients in the
of collection electrodes, bafes, deectors, etc. signicantly inu- governing equations to model the different wall proles and other
ence the ow eld. But it is very difcult to carry out detailed structures inside the ESP. Bottner and Sommerfeld [10] predicted
and reliable measurements of uid ow inside an ESP as the geom- turbulent ow in a test channel equipped with seven discharge
etry is very complex. CFD provides an alternative method, which is wires. Dumont and Mudry [11] made a comparative study on ow
viable and less expensive to study the ow behavior inside the ESP. simulation results obtained from different precipitator CFD
A suitable CFD model plays an important role in predicting the ow models.
eld characteristics and particle trajectories inside the ESP and The above studies were broadly dedicated to simulate uid ow
optimizing ow distributions within the ESP by simulating pro- inside the ESP with either simplied models or simplied geome-
posed modications. This ensures that the desired ow proles tries. The accurate aerodynamic characteristics of the ow inside
are achieved, thus substantially reducing the outage time. How- an ESP in an operation may not be obtained without considering
ever, only a limited number of research works could be found in all of its major physical details. The novelty of this study is to de-
the open literature for the prediction of turbulent ow behavior in- velop a new 3D uid ow model of a full scale ESP which considers
all of its major physical features. It is to be noted that all the col-
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 49309676; fax: +61 7 49309382.
lecting electrodes (CE), bafes, gas deectors, etc. are taken into ac-
E-mail address: m.rasul@cqu.edu.au (M.G. Rasul). count in this 3D model and have not been replaced by any
1359-4311/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2008.10.019
2038 Shah M.E. Haque et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 20372042
Nomenclature
equivalent porous region as other researchers have done in their and located after the collection chamber, has a 2 mm thick screen
studies. A detailed numerical approach and simulation procedure inside it. Due to the symmetry in geometry only one-half of a gas-
is presented to predict the ow behavior inside the ESP. The pre- path has been modeled in this study.
dicted results are compared with the on-site measured data. The
ow model developed has the potential to better predict the effect 3. Numerical approach and simulation procedure
of possible modications and improvement in ESP design.
Numerical computation of uid transport includes conservation
2. ESP geometry of mass, momentum and turbulence model equations. The Fluent
Inc. geometry and mesh generation software Gambit was used as
The power station in this study has four power generating units a preprocessor to create the geometry, discretize the uid domain
of 350 MW capacity each. Each unit has two single-stage, plate- into small cells to form a volume mesh or grid and set up the appro-
type, rigid-frame, cold-side and dry ESPs which are called pass A priate boundary conditions. The ow properties were then specied
and pass B. Each pass has two gas-paths covering four zones as is and the problems were solved and analyzed by Fluent solver.
shown in Fig. 1. The effective length, width and height of each cas-
ing are 30.36 m, 11 m and 13.1 m, respectively. The width and 3.1. Governing equations
height of the CE walls are 5.76 m and 12.5 m, respectively. Each
pass has 54 passages having 400 mm CE wall spacing. Discharge The air inside the ESP was treated as incompressible Newtonian
electrodes (DE) are welded into pipe frames with 2 frames per pas- uid due to the small pressure drop (<100 Pa) across the ESP. The
sage. The width of DE frame is 5.76 m and the heights are 5 m and ow was assumed to be steady and can be described by the conser-
7.5 m. Rapping is the dust removal method for both collection elec- vation of mass equation:
trodes and discharge electrodes. Three perforated plates with the
thickness of 8 mm, 2 mm and 2 mm are located inside the inlet ~ qU
r ~ 0 1
evase. The inlet evase is a pyramidal diffuser with large divergence
angle (more than 50) which is located in front of the rectangular and the momentum equation:
collection chamber. The outlet evase, which is a convergent duct
~
~r
U ~U~ rp mr
~ 2U
~ ~
g 2
q
For the turbulent ow inside the ESP, the key to the success of CFD
lies with the accurate description of the turbulent behavior of the
ow. To model the turbulent ow in an ESP, there are a number
of turbulence models available in Fluent. The realizable ke model
is a relatively recent development and contains a new formulation
for the turbulent viscosity and a new transport equation for the dis-
sipation rate, e which can be written as follows [12]:
@ @ @ lt @k
qk qkuj l Gk Gb qe Y M Sk 3
@t @xj @xj rk @xj
@ @ @ lt @ e
qe qeuj l qC 1 Se
@t @xj @xj re @xj
2
e e
qC 0 p C 1e C 3e Gb Se 4
Fig. 1. Measurement planes for velocity distribution. k me k
Shah M.E. Haque et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 20372042 2039
Fig. 7. Predicted pressure drop across the porous jump boundary condition (inlet
velocity 9 m/s).
Two more simulations were carried out with and without intro-
ducing the perforated plates inside the ESP to observe the signi-
cance of using perforated plates and screens inside the ESP. The
Fig. 4. Computational grid of perforated plate model.
velocity contour at plan view section without any perforated plates
is presented in Fig. 8.
The simulated result shows ow separation from the inlet evase
wall as is expected for the ow with high Reynolds number inside
a diffuser with large divergence angle. The ow separation could
be removed by introducing resistance over the cross section of
the diffuser. Fig. 9 shows the results of the simulation after insert-
ing perforated plates and screens inside the inlet and outlet evase.
The perforated plates are found to create resistance over the cross
section and regulate the ow in both the diffuser and the channel
following it.
The initial values of C2 in Eq. (6) were obtained from the litera-
ture [14], which were 527 for plate 1, 1605 for plate 2, 1563 for
plate 3, 9600 for bottom part of the outlet screen and 29,950 for
the upper part of the outlet screen. It is to be noted that these val-
ues are valid only for a uniform duct and perforated plate arrange-
ment. As the perforated plates used in the ESP are located inside a
diffuser and a convergent duct, the values of C2 obtained from [14]
cannot be directly used in this study. Hence the values of C2 were
Fig. 5. Predicted pressure drop across the perforated plate at different velocities for reduced until the predicted velocity matched with the on-site mea-
air and gas. sured data taken at the downstream of the ESP (at plane 3). The
Shah M.E. Haque et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 20372042 2041
Fig. 9. Velocity contours at y = 5.91 m plan view section with perforated plates.
tions are found to be in reasonable agreement with the measured [4] L. Zhao, E. Dela Cruz, K. Adamiak,, A.A. Berezin, J.S. Chang, A numerical model of
a wire-plate electrostatic precipitator under electrohydrodynamic ow
data. The inclusion of collecting electrodes, bafes and the perfo-
conditions, in: Conference proceedings. The 10th International Conference on
rated plates in the numerical model is expected to provide direct Electrostatic Precipitator, Australia, 2006.
means to assess their inuence on the ow pattern of an ESP and [5] G. Skodras, S.P. Kalidas, D. Soalidis, O. Faltsi, P. Grammelis, G.P.
make this model particularly useful to predict possible improve- Sakellaropoulos, Particulate removal via electrostatic precipitators CFD
simulation, Fuel Processing Technology 87 (2006) 623631.
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the collection mechanisms inside a laboratory scale electrostatic precipitator,
Acknowledgements Journal of Electrostatics 63 (2005) 423443.
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efciency of an electrostatic precipitator, Journal of Electrostatics 55 (2002)
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the 111133.
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[9] I. Gallimberti, I. Recent advancements in the physical modeling of electrostatic
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