Experimental Investigations on Lateral Dispersion Coefficients of Fuel Particles in Large-Scale Circulating Fluidized Bed Boilers with Different Coal Feeding Modes

The dispersion characteristics of fuel particles over the bed have always been a key consideration in the design of fluidized beds. However, the lateral fuel dispersion coefficients (Dsr) reported in the previous literature widely ranged from 10−4 to 10−1 m2/s, which were hard to be directly applied in large-scale CFB (circulating fluidized bed) boilers with wider bed width (close to 30 m) and variable coal feeding modes. To solve this problem, field tests were conducted on the first 600 MW CFB boiler in this paper, and the distributions of flue gas composition and flue gas temperature were obtained near the coal feeding port under four working conditions. The dispersion characteristics of fuel particles were analyzed in detail combined with the dispersion model. In addition, a new method based on bed heat balance was also proposed to estimate Dsr and applied in a 300 MW CFB boiler with a different coal feeding mode. The results revealed that Dsr through the local heat balance method ranged from 0.10–0.35 m2/s, which were 9–18% higher than the values through the dispersion model. Compared with the coal feeding port immersed in the bed, Dsr of the fuel particles fed into the splash zone increased by about 34.7%. Dsr under the coal feeding mode of a screw feeder with pressurized air ranged from 0.12–0.16 m2/s, which were lower than Dsr under the coal feeding method of importing fuel into circulating ash. The method and results in this paper could expand the applicability of fuel dispersion, and provide the most direct guidance for the design and optimization of coal feeding ports in large-scale CFB boilers.