An Experimental Study on the Non-Uniform Flow Distribution in the Windbox of an Oil-Fired Boiler

유류 연소 발전용 보일러에서 공기 공급 계통의 불균일성에 관한 실험적 연구

Oil-fired power plant usually uses several burners and combustion air is supplied to each burner through the complicated duct which is called windbox. A windbox should be designed to supply combustion air to each burner uniformly but, due to the complicated duct shape, flow distribution in the windbox is unbalanced and non-uniform supplies of combustion air are induced by these unbalanced flows in the windbox. These flow patterns tend to make flame unstable, increase the formation of pollutants and lower the overall combustion efficiency. To prevent these disadvantages, flow patterns in the windbox should be investigated for the uniform flow distribution. In this study, computational simulation method was used to investigate the flow distribution in a windbox and measured the velocities at the exit of burners in a real windbox and model tests to compare with CFD results. The results show two significant flow patterns. One is that the flow rates of each burner are different from each other and this means that all burners operate in different conditions of air to fuel ratio. The other is that the flow distribution at the exit of each burner is not axi-symmetric although the burner shape is axi-symmetric. Additionally some modifications of windbox shape and installation of baffles were proposed to make the uniform flow in the windox.