Benefits of CFD

The use of computer aided engineering (CAE) tools in the design process of industrial equipment has become standard practice. Within the CAE toolbox, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used for analysing fluid flow problems.

The use of CAE in the design process has allowed strong reduction of product development time and cost in nearly all industries, as virtual prototyping using CAE tools has allowed reducing the number of physical prototypes.

This equally applies for the use of CFD in the design of combustion equipment. Besides the time and cost aspects, combustion equipment performance has to comply with stringent regulations for fuel efficiency, pollutant emissions and safety. CFD offers a great potential in reducing development time and cost of combustion equipment.

Limitations of CFD for combustion applications

The fundamental understanding of the interaction between turbulent flow and combustion chemistry is not yet fully established and therefore the results of CFD simulations are often not as predictive as required to fully benefit from the potential reduction in product development time and cost.

However, when using currently available models with care and expertise, CFD can be a very useful tool in the design process of combustion equipment.

Typical CFD studies

CFD is widely used to investigate the impact of changes in geometry of combustion equipment on combustion efficiency and pollutant emissions. But also changes in operating conditions can be investigated, or CFD can be used to investigate the impact of using alternative fuels like biofuels in existing combustion equipment.

CFD can be used to address problems with existing combustion applications, for example acoustic pulsations in gas turbines or industrial furnaces, or knock in spark ignition engines. Such problems may lead to severe damage of the combustion equipment . CFD can provide insight in the behavior of the system and contribute to resolving the problem.

CFD benchmarks

CFD studies may also involve benchmarks between CFD software packages, which are often done before selecting a preferred CFD package in the industrial process. Benchmarks between turbulent combustion models can be realised as well, in order to assess if for example a new model gives better performance than the combustion model used to date.

Dacolt has all the expertise and software tools required to perform high-quality CFD analyses of combustion applications. Contact us for more information on CFD studies.