An NETL researcher presented recent findings from ongoing gasification modeling work at the 2014 Gasification Technologies Conference. The presentation entitled “Computational Fluid Dynamic Simulations of a Pilot-Scale Transport Gasifier Using Mississippi Lignite Feedstock” was co-authored by ORD researchers Tingwen Li and William Rogers; Douglas McCarty of Southern Company Services; and Jenny Tennant of NETL’s Strategic Center for Coal. The presentation describes a comprehensive set of detailed multiphase computational fluid dynamic simulations using NETL’s MFIX code. These simulations are based on testing performed at the Power Systems Development Facility (PSDF) for the TRIGTM gasifier operating over a broad range of conditions with Mississippi Lignite feedstock. NETL has previously modeled PSDF TRIG™ gasifier performance for both bituminous and Powder River Basin coals and comparison with SCS data has been very good. This work builds on these efforts and uses enhanced MFIX capabilities and the new NETL-based supercomputing facility to create more detailed models to more accurately model TRIG™ performance. With the enhanced meshing capability for dealing with complex flow geometry, detailed feed distributions in the gasification process are fully accounted for in the model to allow investigation of their impact on gasifier performance.
The new coal chemistry enhancement to MFIX, called Carbonaceous Chemistry for Computational Modeling (C3M) leverages the kinetic models from leading coal kinetic packages to provide the detailed reaction kinetics in the gasification process for the MFIX gasifier model. Gasifier performance over a range of operating conditions has been modeled to verify the ability of the model to predict parametric behavior. Excellent agreement between model predictions and experimental measurements has been seen over a broad range of operating conditions. These results reinforce the ability of the MFIX code to serve as a tool to help the industrial designers and operators improve the process efficiency and reduce risks in design and operation.
The presentation can be found here and an animation of the gasifier simulation can be found here.