Interactive educational system for coal combustion modeling in
Power Plant boilers
Marek Gayer, Pavel Slavík and František Hrdlička
Computer Graphics GroupDepartment of Computer Science and EngineeringFaculty of Electrical Engineering of CTU in Prague
Czech Republic
IEEE Region 8 EUROCON 2003, Ljubljana, September 22-24, 2003
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Outline of the presentation Brief introduction and motivation to
– Interactive education– Combustion modelling – Computation fluid dynamics (CFD)
Our system overview and its key parts– Fluid simulator– Virtual coal particle system– Simplified combustion and heat transfer
Results reliability testing Visualization and interactivity demonstration Conclusion and future work
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www.cgg.cvut.czInteractive education in general
Useful for complex cases where only theoretical explanation is ineffective
Often used in individual learning and practicing part of education
Doing by learning and “what if” concept Motivates students, utilizes creativity Is more effective, attractive and “fun”
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www.cgg.cvut.czIntroduction and motivation to coal combustion modeling and visualization
Both for the ecological and economical reasons
Finding optimal boiler configurations– To reduce pollution– Combustion optimization– To find a way for optimal
fuel preparation How can visualization help
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www.cgg.cvut.czThe modelling of fluid flow - CFD
Most often: solving complex differential equations (e.g. Navier-Stokes)
Fluid simulators for computer graphics(e.g. ACM SIGGRAPH Proceedings)
Coal combustion as an CFD application Current solutions and systems:
Precise, robust, well-knownSlow, complex, no real-time => unsuitable for education
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Our system overview Allows dynamic overview of the
combustion process Real-time simulation and visualization
(2D simplification) Designed on following key parts
– Fluid simulator– Virtual coal particle system (with
simplified combustion engine)
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Our Fluid Simulator Dividing boiler
area to grid cell arrays
Values updated in each time step
Principle of local simulation
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Virtual coal particle system Used for both simulation
and visualization of the combustion process
Virtual particle system approach
Simplified combustion and heat transfer computation
Movement determination:– Aerodynamic resistance– Gravity force
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t = 0 seconds:
T = 343oC (above ignition)O2 concentration = 25%
Coal particle
Partially burned particle
C
C
C
t = 0.01 seconds:
T = 345oC (increased)O2 concentration = 24%
Partially burned coal particles
Coal particle transformed to burned ash particle
C
B
C
C
C
Interaction of virtual coal particlesInteraction of virtual coal particles
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Results comparison – numerical approach
Built-in numerical comparison code Statistically compares the results
between our system and FLUENT From 60% to 80% cells are less than
30% different from FLUENT values (temperature, flow directions, ... )
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Sample visualization - cell characteristics
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www.cgg.cvut.czSample visualization – coal particles
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Sample visualization of particle characteristics (particle tracks)
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www.cgg.cvut.czSample visualization - statistics
Visualize values distribution in boiler
Available for all characteristics (about 10 particle and 40 cell)
(e.g. for temperature or coal particle diameter distribution)
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www.cgg.cvut.czOur interactive combustion system
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www.cgg.cvut.czConclusion and future research
Interactive, educational for coal combustion modelling featuring:– Fast & simple real-time fluid simulator– Particle system with simplified combustion engine– Real-time visualization using OpenGL– Results reliability tested with FLUENT– Designed for education and “preview” design
Future research: – Precision improvements – further to reality– Further testing on real boiler tasks– The real-time 3D combustion system experiment
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www.cgg.cvut.czThank you for your attention.
???Do you have any questions ?