Evaluation of FSK models for radiative heat transfer under oxyfuel conditions

Oxyfuel is a promising technology for carbon capture and storage (CCS) applied to combustion processes. It would be highly advantageous in the deployment of CCS to be able to model and optimise oxyfuel combustion, however the increased concentrations of CO2 and H2O under oxyfuel conditions modify several fundamental processes of combustion, including radiative heat transfer. This study uses benchmark narrow band radiation models to evaluate the influence of assumptions in global full-spectrum k-distribution (FSK) models, and whether they are suitable for modelling radiation in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations of oxyfuel combustion. The statistical narrow band (SNB) and correlated-k (CK) models are used to calculate benchmark data for the radiative source term and heat flux, which are then compared to the results calculated from FSK models. Both the full-spectrum correlated k (FSCK) and the full-spectrum scaled k (FSSK) models are applied using up-to-date spectral data. The results show that the FSCK and FSSK methods achieve good agreement in the test cases. The FSCK method using a five-point Gauss quadrature scheme is recommended for CFD calculations in oxyfuel conditions, however there are still potential inaccuracies in cases with very wide variations in the ratio between CO2 and H2O concentrations. •Two FSK models are validated against two test cases that represent oxyfuel conditions.•The FSK models are validated against SNB model results within a commercial CFD code.•The FSK models and the SNB models are applied with up-to-date spectral data.•Both FSK models show better agreement than the standard WSGG model for radiative transfer.•The FSCK model is recommended with a 5-point Gauss quadrature for oxyfuel CFD calculations.