Flow characteristics diagnosis and optimization for dust collectors inflow duct in thermal power plants

Flue duct of thermal power plants is utilized to convey flue gas and cold air. The design optimization of it influences the resistance of the air and flue gas system, even the operation status of installations connected directly with the duct. To diagnose the faults of serious duct wear and nonuniform gas distribution in the dust collector of a 600 MW power plant due to unreasonable inflow duct design, the author took the standard k-ε model and made numerical simulation of the duct flow field using Fluent solver. Three retrofit schemes proposed all can decrease the resistance, mitigate the wearing down and distribute flue gas uniformly. The influence of turning radius and gas velocity on resistance and gas distribution was analyzed. The simulation results show that turning radius of the duct section should be set above 0.875 and gas velocity has almost no effect on duct performance.