Numerical analysis of particle dispersion and deposition in coal combustion using large-eddy simulation

•High-fidelity modeling including Large-eddy Simulation (LES) is employed to investigate the particle dispersion and deposition in pulverized coal combustion.•A new Stokes number analysis method based on the subgrid-scale turbulence is proposed to analyze the interaction between particle dispersion and subgrid scale turbulence.•This study integrates the improved ash deposition model into the numerical simulation. Overall, simulation results are compared experimentally measured data from down-fired self-sustained oxy-fuel combustor (OFC). High-fidelity modeling provides a useful approach to investigate the particle dispersion and deposition mechanism in pulverized coal combustion. To be able to analyze these detailed mechanisms, this work couples detailed multiphysics models for poly-dispersed turbulent, particle-laden flow, particle and gas phase reaction chemistry, convective, conductive and radiative heat transfer, ash formation and deposition with a Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) approach to numerically simulate coal combustion in a downfired self-sustained oxy-fuel combustor (OFC). It is necessary to explicitly capture all but the highest frequency dynamics of the turbulence and its coupling with each of the other physical phenomena using LES. Effects of subgrid-scale unresolved turbulence on the particle motions are also analyzed by a novel Stokes number analysis. Due to the inherent relation ship between coal combustion and ash deposition, this study integrates the improved ash deposition model into the numerical simulation. Overall simulation results are compared with experimentally measured data from the OFC. The simulation and measured data for the averaged gas temperature and deposition rates agree with 5% and 28%. This study shows that high-fidelity LES coupled with other detailed multiphysics models running on a exascale computing facility can provide a good representation of complex coal combustion and deposition in a laboratory-scale furnace.