A non-equal fragment model of a water-wall in a supercritical boiler

In this paper, a non-equal fragment model is developed to investigate the heat and mass transfer of a water-wall in a supercritical boiler. In this model, the water-wall has been divided into several fragments and has been coupled with a boiler furnace model, which is divided into seven compartments based on the position of the burners. The model was validated using data from a 600 MW supercritical boiler in China. The agreement between the calculated response and the operation data is satisfactory. Compared with conventional methods, the non-equal fragment model provides a more reliable heat distribution and a more adaptive response under different burners' conditions. The steam thermodynamic distributions along the vertical direction have been meticulously calculated and will be helpful for the metal temperature prediction, performance estimation and energy-saving potential analysis. (C) 2014 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.