Sugar cane bagasse, a biomass material that is readily available, has been used as a fuel for well over 4 decades. However, combustion of bagasse has its own special set of problems which appear to be due largely to the high moisture content of the fuel. In this present research work, in order to gain insight into the effect of moisture on the flame front, an experimental program is carried out on an operating, industrial size bagasse-fired furnace. The furnace is modeled by the three-dimensional CFD package FLUENT. The results of modeling show a considerable delay to ignition due to the drying of fuel. The effect of fuel moisture on drying and heating up of the fuel is the key feature for the investigation done in this work.

Issue Section:
Research Papers
Keywords:
bagasse, combustion, turbulence, fuel moisture, CFD, moisture, combustion, electric furnaces, ignition, renewable materials, computational fluid dynamics, drying, process heating
Topics:
Bagasse, Combustion, Fuels, Furnaces, Particulate matter, Drying, Temperature, Ignition, Fireplaces, Computational fluid dynamics
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