K5 Zhang-Wang-IMECE2009-13252.pdf

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Proceedings of IMECE2009

2009 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition

November 13-19, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, USA

IMECE2009-13252

SIMULATION OF COMBUSTION AND THERMAL-FLOW INSIDE A PETROLEUM COKE ROTARY

CALCINING KILN, PART 2: ANALYSIS OF EFFECTS OF TERTIARY AIRFLOW AND ROTATION

Zexuan Zhang Ting Wang

Research Assistant Professor

Zzhang@uno.edu Twang@uno.edu

Energy Conversion and Conservation Center

University of New Orleans

New Orleans, LA 70148-2220, USA

ABSTRACT

A computational model is established to simulate the

combustion and thermal-flow behavior inside a petcoke rotary

calcining kiln. The results show that peak temperature is

located at the tertiary air zone and a cold region that exists

between the natural gas combustion zone and the tertiary air

zone causes the coke bed to lose heat to the gas stream. The

cold tertiary air injections reduce the gas temperature inside

the kiln, so preheating the tertiary air using extracted gas or

other waste energy is essential to saving energy. The

devolatilization rate and location have a pronounced effect on

the simulated temperature distribution.

As the calcining kiln rotates, the tertiary air injection

nozzles will move relative to the coke bed and exert cyclic

air-bed interactions. At zero angular position, the air injection

nozzles are diametrically located away from the bed, so the

interactions between the tertiary air jets and coke bed are

minimal. As the kiln rotates to a 180-degree position, the

stem of the air injection nozzles are actually buried inside the

coke bed with the nozzles protruding outward from the bed.

At this position, the tertiary air jets will provide a fresh layer of

air just above the coke bed, and the interaction between the air

flow and coke bed becomes strong. The 45° rotational angle

case shows a better calcination with a 100 K higher bed

surface temperature at the discharge end compared to the rest

of rotational angles. Without including the coke fines

combustion and the coke bed, the lumped gas temperature for

the rotational cases shows a peak temperature of 1,400 K at

Z/D = 2, which is due to natural gas combustion; the lowest

temperature is around 1,075 K at two locations, Z/D = 4 and 8,

respectively. The exhaust gas temperature is approximately

1,100K.

INTRODUCTION

Part 1 of this paper established the computational model

for the study. Due to the complexity of the results, only the

results of various rotational angles are presented in Part 2.

Other results will be presented in a future paper. For the

convenience of reading Part 2, the locations and labeling of the

tertiary air injectors are shown again here in Fig. 1.

U1 U2 U3

D1 D2 D3

θ = 15 ̊, 30 ̊, or 45 ̊

Gas Flow Direction

Z = 18.288 m Z = 19.812 m Z = 21.336 m

Z = 15.24 m Z = 16.764 m Z = 18.288 m

Fig. 1 Tertiary air injector locations and labeling (same as

Fig. 13 in Part 1)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Baseline Case (Case 1)

In the baseline case, the tertiary inlet is at the 0 degree

position (see Fig. 9a in Part 1), and the tertiary air injection

angles of D1, D2, U1 and U2 are ±15 degrees (Fig.1). The

entire kiln wall is set as the adiabatic wall condition. The

combustion consists of all three types of reactions, natural gas

with air, volatiles with air, and coke fines with air. The air is

supplied with 23% oxygen and 76% nitrogen in mass fraction.

In the heat-up zone, a thin layer is added above the coke bed

acting as a heat sink that absorbs latent heat (347 kW/m3

) and

simulates a moisture evaporation process. The simulation is

carried out under a steady-state condition.

Figure 2a is a vertical plane view cutting through the

middle of the kiln at X = 0. In this figure, the natural gas and

the main air are supplied at the coke discharge end (left end of

Fig. 2a). The combusted gas moves from left to right, and at

the bottom the coke moves from right to left. The gas flow

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direction (from left to right) is assigned as the downstream

direction and opposite to the gas flow direction (from right to

left) is assigned as the upstream direction. The natural gas

combustion flame can be seen near the main air inlet with a

flame temperature above 2,500 K. Downstream (toward the

right) of this natural gas combustion region, a relatively cooler

region with a temperature of around 1,000 K exists because of

the depletion of natural gas and oxygen. In this relatively

cooler zone, the coke bed surface temperature is calculated

between 1,200 and 1,400 K (see Fig.2c), which is actually

higher than the gas temperature. This region is where the

heat is lost from the coke bed to the gas. Moreover, this

region is also where the quality of the calcined coke is

critically dependent on the coke bed temperature. The current

practice is to add natural gas combustion near the discharge

end to maintain the required coke bed temperature and produce

quality carbon products. However, as natural gas prices

continue to be volatile and climbing, finding a means to reduce

the natural gas consumption is an important operational goal to

reducing production costs.

(a) Vertical mid-plane at X = 0

(b) Horizontal mid-plane at Y = 0

Fig. 2 Temperature contours inside the kiln for Case 1

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In the tertiary air zone, volatiles that are devolatilized

from the coke bed are combusting with the fresh injected air

resulting in another high temperature region. At this region

and in this figure, there are two groups of combustion flames

present. The top flame is a result of the combustion of

volatiles and coke fines (dusts) emitted from the coke bed with

the air supplied from D1, D2, U1, and U2 tertiary air injectors.

The bottom flame is created by the combustion of volatiles and

coke fines with the air supplied solely by the U3 tertiary air

injector. The cold air from the D3 tertiary air injector actually

reduces the temperature in the tertiary air zone. This effect is

clearly shown downstream of the D3 tertiary injector in Fig. 2a.

In the heat-up zone, the heat sink embedded on the coke bed

surface (between Z = 36.576 and 60.96 m) continuously

absorbs latent heat from the main flow to vaporize moisture.

This heat-sink effect can be observed by the reduced

temperature at the layer right above the coke bed in Fig. 2a.

The temperature contours in Fig. 2a & b show an

interesting combustion pattern; the combustion takes places

near the coke bed in the tertiary air injection region, but it lifts

over to the center of the flow passage. Examination of the

species concentration in Fig. 3 reveals this phenomenon is

caused by a depletion of oxygen near the coke bed surface and

a growing layer of unburned volatiles released from the coke

bed. The oxygen concentration in Fig. 3a shows plenty of

oxygen existing in the upper part of the kiln but is depleted in

the lower part of the flow passage. The oxygen-rich air

stream is somehow partitioned from the fuel (volatiles) rich

gas by the combusted gas. Mass weighted mass fraction

distributions in Fig. 4 also show about 14% (or 1% of the total

gas mass) of the volatiles are not burned at gas exit (feed end)

of the kiln. This simulated result provides an important

insight into the combustion phenomenon, and hence, by

increasing downstream mixing provides an opportunity for

implementing a means to manipulate the flow to achieve a

more effective combustion near the coke bed. This will be a

worthwhile task for future study.

(a) Mass fraction of O2

(b) Mass fraction of volatile matters

CO2

Fig. 3 Species mass fraction inside the kiln for vertical mid-plane at x = 0 for Case 1

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Fig. 4 Mass weighted species mass fraction distributions

inside the kiln for Case 1

Some effects of the tertiary injection angle and

arrangement can be observed in the horizontal mid-plane view

of Y = 0 (Fig. 3b). In the calcining zone, the U1 tertiary air

injector creates a combustion flame that goes up and the U2

tertiary air injector creates a relatively hot zone that moves

down. Figure 1c is the plane view for Y = – 0.9144, which is

the coke bed surface plane. Figure 2c shows the coke bed

surface temperature gradually increases from the feed end (300

K) to as high as 1,600 K at the calcining zone and finalizes at

1,200 K at the discharge end.

Fig. 5 shows temperature contours of ten cross-sections

cutting through the six tertiary inlet piping and downstream of

the injectors. The cold air injected from the U1 tertiary air

inlet reduces the temperature in its cross-sectional view. In

the U2 cross-sectional view, the air from the U1 tertiary air

inlet combusts with volatiles and coke fines right above the

coke bed. The core of that air stream is still cold. In U3

cross-sectional view, the combustion is stronger, but it seems

the combustion takes place on the shear layer surrounding the

cold core of air stream. Stronger combustion is taking place

in the D2 cross-sectional view, and again, cold air streams

from the U3 and D1 tertiary air injections create relatively cold

regions. The signature of the cold air stream core persists

throughout the tertiary air injection region as can be seen in

Fig. 2a and Fig. 5.

U1 U2 U3 & D1 D2 D3

Fig. 5 Temperature contours at each tertiary air inlet location for Case 1

The temperature distribution along the centerlines (X = 0)

of the gas region as well as three different depths in the coke

bed (coke bed surface, in the mid-depth, and at the bottom) are

shown respectively in Fig. 6. The centerline gas temperature

shows that the peak temperature of the main inlet combustion

is about 2,200 K at less than 5 m from the discharge end, and

in the tertiary air inlet zone, the combustion peak temperature

rises up to 2,300 K at Z = 20 m. Between these two peaks,

the temperature drops below 1,150 K at the end of natural gas

combustion zone at Z = 10 m. In this region of relatively

cool gas temperature (Z = 7 ~ 15 m), the coke bed temperature

is actually higher than the gas temperature, so heat is lost from

the coke bed to the gas. Heat lost from the coke bed can be

further supported by comparing the centerline temperature at

three different depths: the temperature at the coke bed bottom

is higher than in the mid-depth, which in turn has the

temperature higher than on the coke bed surface, and the mass

weighted average static temperature reaches around 1,800 K

for natural gas combustion and volatiles combustion.

Fig. 6 Central line static temperatures for gas and coke

bed for Case 1 including mass flow weighted gas

temperature

The coke bed surface temperature starts cold at the

feeding end (Z = 60.96 m) and reaches the maximum value of

1,500 K at around Z = 15 m; at the discharge end, the coke bed

temperature becomes uniform and is discharged at about 1,300

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K. Starting from the feeding end, the coke bed surface

always receives the heat from the hot gas and maintains at the

hottest in the coke bed until the coke moves to the relatively

cool gas region at Z = 15 m. Reversal of temperature

gradient from receiving heat to losing heat is clearly shown at

Z = 16 m in Fig. 6, where the coke bed surface temperature

drops becoming the coolest in the coke bed.

Representative flow fields are shown in Fig. 7. From

the flow field shown in the vertical mid-plant (X = 0) in Fig.

7a, a stagnant flow induced by recirculation can be seen

between the discharge end and the tertiary air injection region.

This recirculation flow is caused by the entrainment induced

by the strong main flow entering momentum. This

entrainment is so strong that even the air flow injected from

the D1 tertiary injector is reversed (see Fig. 7c) and moves

toward the discharge end. The combustion produced by the

reversed tertiary flow can be seen in Fig. 2a upstream of the

D1 tertiary air injector. The reversed flow is stopped by the

main flow entering from the discharge end and forms a

high-pressure stagnant region between Z = 5 and 15 m. It is

here no combustion occurs, and the gas temperature reduces to

below 1,150 K, as discussed earlier in Fig. 6, due to entrained

cold tertiary air.

(a) Vertical mid-plane at X = 0

(b) Horizontal mid-plane at Y = 0

Fig. 7 Velocity profiles for Case 1

Various Rotational Angles

Case 1 was conducted with the tertiary air injection plane

perpendicular to the coke bed surface as shown in Fig. 9a in

Part 1. Note: Due to rotation the coke bed generally tilts

approximately 15 degrees counterclockwise. For convenience

and easy reading, Fig. 9 (Part 1) is plotted with a horizontal

coke bed surface. Since the kiln is rotating, the relative

positions of the tertiary air injectors with respect to the coke

bed surface continuously changes. The result of thermal-flow

fields and combustion pattern, due to the change of the tertiary

air injection positions, are compared at five different positions:

0 (Case 5), 45 (Case 6), 90 (Case 9), 135 (Case 10), and 180

(Case 11) degrees, respectively. In this group of simulation, a

specific interest is focused on whether the tertiary air injection

would disturb the coke bed, kick off coke particles, and result

in increased attrition and reduced production. Since the

detailed thermo-flow and combustion fields have been

analyzed and discussed in Case 1, to shorten the computational

time, the conjugate conduction calculation through the coke

bed and combustion of coke on the coke bed are not included

in other cases. Figure 8a, the vertical plane view of X = 0 for

Case 5, shows a temperature field similar to the baseline case

(Case 1), except the temperature is lower without including

coke fines combustion. Cool air streams can be seen

downstream of each injector. In Fig. 8b (45°) and Fig. 8c (90°),

the temperature range is similar to Case 5, and these two

positions produce similar temperature distributions. Since

there is no tertiary injection on this plane, no cool air streams

are observed.

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Regions of hot combustion are seen across the entire kiln

in the tertiary air injection area. Due to the release of volatile

matters from the coke bed, the major combustion region is still

located downstream of the tertiary air injections and near the

lower part of the kiln. No obvious improvement of

combustion is seen on the upper part of the kiln when the

tertiary air is injected off from the vertical plane. The cool

region between the natural gas combustion flame and the

tertiary air injection region is about 100 K hotter than Case 5.

The effectiveness of combustion for the tertiary air injection at

position 135° in Fig. 8d is significantly reduced from a similar

position at 45° (Fig. 8b). Due to the switching of downstream

and upstream locations of the upper and lower injectors, this

combustion reduction seems to be solely caused by the effect

of the flow field. The combustion is suppressed when the

lower injectors are located downstream of the upper injectors.

This observation is confirmed by the results of Case 11 shown

in Fig. 8e, which occurs when the injectors are rotated 180° off

from the baseline location shown in Fig. 8a.

(a) Case 5 (0°)

(b) Case 6 (45°)

(d) Case 10 (135°)

(e) Case 11 (180°)

Fig. 8 Temperature contours on the vertical plane x = 0 for various rotational angles

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(a) Case 5 (0°)

(b) Case 6 (45°)

(d) Case 10 (135°)

(e) Case 11 (180°)

Fig. 9 Temperature contours on the horizontal mid-plane y = 0 for various rotational angles

Figure 9 shows the temperature contours on the

horizontal mid-plane (Y = 0). The relatively lower

temperature distribution when compared with the vertical

temperature distribution in Fig. 8 indicates that the combustion

is weaker on the mid-plane of the kiln. Case 6 (45°), in Fig.

9b, shows more combustion than other cases; while Case 9

(90°), in Fig. 9c, shows the lowest combustion activity on the

mid-plane. Combination of the temperature contours on the

vertical mid-plane in Fig. 8, and the horizontal mid-plane in

Fig. 9 clearly indicates most of the combustion taking place

near the lower part of the kiln near the coke bed.

As stated earlier, the off-center turning angles (± 15°) of

injectors D1, D2, U1, and U2 are made to direct the air streams

away from hitting the downstream injectors. During rotation,

two of these injectors will periodically blow air towards the

coke bed. This will kick the coke dusts off from the coke bed

surface and result in coke attrition and loss of product yields.

In addition, tertiary air injections exert impacts on the coke bed

surface temperature distribution. Although tertiary air

provides oxygen to combust the volatiles, it also provides the

cooling effect if it is directly blowing towards the bed surface.

For example, the snapshot temperature contour in Case 10

(135°) in Fig. 10e shows a cool area between the third injector

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(U3) and the tumbler, which is the evidence of the cooling

effect of the off-enter air jet blowing from D1. Again, the

coke bed surface temperature between natural gas flame and

tertiary inlet zone for Case 6 in Fig. 10b is 100 K higher than

other four cases. Recall that the calculation of Cases 5-11 are

conducted without including the coke bed, so temperature

distribution on the coke bed surface appears to be stripes rather

than the bell shape as shown in Fig. 2c. Comparison among

Figs. 2a, b, c with Figs. 8a, 9a, and 10a shows the effect of

conjugate coke bed heat transfer on the coke bed temperature.

(a) Case 5 (0°)

(b) Case 6 (45°)

(d) Case 10 (135°)

(e) Case 11 (180°)

Fig. 10 Temperature contours of horizontal plane y = – 0.9144 for various rotational angles

Figure 11 shows the temperature distribution at each

tertiary air injection cross-section. The evolution of the

temperature distribution at each tertiary injection location can

be observed by looking at the same location with the rotational

sequence. The cold air streams are evident in these sequential

cross-sectional temperature contours. In Cases 10 (135°) and

Case 11 (180°), the effect of cold stream prevails downstream

of the injectors and results in the reduced combustion shown in

Fig. 8 d and e. Since Figs. 8 and 9 only show selected planes

for comparison, what position produces the best or worst

combustion performance is not clear. Mass flow weighted

calculations of temperature by integrating over the

cross-section at selected axial location are shown in Fig. 12a

for five rotational cases. As expected, the temperature

distribution near the discharge end shows negligible difference

for all other rotational positions except at 45° rotational angle.

The hot regions of tertiary air combustion vary depending on

the tertiary air injection position.

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(a) Case 5 (0°)

(b) Case 6 (45°)

(d) Case 10 (135°)

(e) Case 11 (180°)

Fig. 11 Temperature contours at each tertiary air injection location for various rotational angles

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In a real situation, all the cases will occur in one rotation;

the average value of these five cases (lumped value) in Fig.

12b gives a better description of the averaged temperature

distribution along the kiln. Due to natural gas combustion,

the peak temperature of the lumped gas is 1,400 K at around Z

= 2 m location. At the tertiary air injection zone, peak

combustion temperature occurs at Z = 18 m with highest

temperature at about 1,370 K. Bed surface temperature of

Case 6 (45°) is approximately 200 K higher than the other four

positions as shown in Figs. 10 and 13. Because better

combustion and the higher gas temperature of Case 6 (45°) has

successfully heat up the coke bed, Case 6 is the best among the

five studied rotating locations.

Mass flow weighted calculations of temperature and

species mass fractions by integrating over the cross-section at

the gas exit plane are shown in Table 1. Generally speaking,

the cases showing higher temperature, higher CO2, lower O2,

and lower volatiles are cases of better combustion. However,

the data shown in Table 1 do not provide a clear picture on

which case is the best because the data show Case 9 (90°) has

the highest CO2 production and least residual of O2, while

Case 6 (45°) reaches the highest temperature, and Case 5 (0°)

has the minimum unburned volatiles. Irrespective of the

indecisiveness in determining which case is the best, it is

relatively certain that Cases 10 and 11 (135° and 180°) do not

perform as well as other cases. In a real situation, all the

cases would occur in one rotation. The average values of

these five cases in Table 1 would give a better description of

the averaged overall performance of each rotation. It needs to

be noted that the simulation does not model the phenomena of

flow disturbance on the coke bed surface when the tertiary jets

impinge on the coke bed surface and kick off the coke particles

into the gas stream.

Table 1 Mass flow weighted average values at the feed

end (or gas exist) for each rotational angle

Rotational Angle Temperature (K) CO2 Mass Fraction O2 Mass Fraction Volatiles Mass Fraction

0° (Case 5) 1070.44 0.1351 0.0495 3.00×10-05

45° (Case 6) 1189.49 0.1427 0.0398 47.08×10-05

90° (Case 9) 1080.11 0.1494 0.0311 3.84×10-05

135° (Case 10) 1073.81 0.1413 0.0418 17.49×10-05

180° (Case 11) 1078.75 0.1433 0.0393 33.84×10-05

Total Average 1098.52 0.1423 0.0403 21.05×10-05

Figures 14 and 15 show the streamwise (Z-direction)

velocity profiles on the vertical and horizontal mid-planes,

respectively. At the tumbler region, the higher velocity flow

shifts from top to bottom from Case 5 to Case 11, following

the position change of the tertiary air injections. Similar to

Fig. 7, recirculation exists between the main inlet combustion

flame and the tertiary air zone. The stagnant zones inhibit hot

natural gas flame from moving further downstream. The

cross section views of velocity profiles at each tertiary air

injection location for all 5 rotational angles are shown in Fig.

16.

(a) Mass flow weighted average temperature for each rotational angle

(b) Lumped gas temperature for rotational cases

Fig. 12 Mass flow weighted average and lumped gas static

temperature for various rotational angles

Fig. 13 Bed surface centerline static temperature for

various rotational angles

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(a) Case 5 (0°)

(b) Case 6 (45°)

(d) Case 10 (135°)

(e) Case 11 (180°)

Fig. 16 Velocity profiles at each tertiary air injection location for various rotational angles

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CONCLUSIONS

In this study, the computational simulation of petcoke

calcination inside a rotary kiln has been conducted using the

commercial code FLUENT. The simulations were conducted

with different operating conditions and assumptions. The

results provide comprehensive information concerning the

thermal-flow behavior and combustion inside an industrial

rotary kiln. The results show that in the baseline case the

peak gas temperature reaches around 1,800 K at Z/D = 6.6 in

the calcining zone; the lowest gas temperature locates about

1,130 K at Z/D = 3.6 between the calcined coke zone and

calcining zone; and the exhaust gas temperature at the feed end

is approximately 1,150 K. The discharged calcined coke

temperature is approximately 1,300 K. The highest coke

bed surface temperature is 1,570 K occurring at Z/D = 6.7.

The typical coke bed temperature difference between surface

and bottom varies between 32 and 200 K. For the most part,

the coke surface temperature is higher than the bottom

temperature, but between Z/D = 0 and 6, the coke bottom is

hotter than the surface. About 14.22 % of the volatiles (0.776

% of the total mass of gas) are not burned inside the kiln and

are carried into the pyroscrubber.

Due to the different tertiary air injection angles, the gas

temperatures slightly vary for each rotational angle. The 45°

rotational angle case shows a better calcination with 100 K

higher bed surface temperature at the discharge end compared

to the rest of rotational angles. Without including the coke

fines combustion and the coke bed, the lumped gas

temperature for the rotational cases shows a peak temperature

of 1,400 K at the Z/D = 2 due to natural gas combustion; the

lowest temperature is around 1,075 K at two locations, Z/D = 4

and 8 respectively. The exhaust gas temperature is

approximately 1,100K.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This study was jointly supported by Rain CII Carbon, LLC

and the Louisiana Board of Regents' Industrial Ties Research

Subprogram.