| Description |
Reaction Engineering International (REI) is working with the University of Utah to leverage the Uintah Computational Framework (UCF) for commercial simulation of industrial flares, with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE). The Arches component of the UCF provides a reacting large eddy simulation (LES) capability, which is a more fundamentally accurate description of turbulent mixing and combustion than is obtained in conventional Reynolds Averaged Navier Stokes (RANS) approaches. Since the application of Arches to the simulation of commercial flares presents many challenges to a potential user, including software compilation, case definition, case setup, simulation and post-processing in an HPC facility, there is a need for streamlining this process to make Arches and commercial HPC facilities more accessible to flare designers and end-users. This paper provides an update on the results of our DOE program focusing on three areas: Air Assist Flares Simulation of TCEQ tests Multipoint Ground Flare Simulation Uncertainty Quantification Analysis The air-assist flare simulations are based on two specific tests from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) 2010 flare test program. The primary difference between these two test cases is the stoichiometric ratio: 1) Test A2.1, SR=15.9; 2) Test A2.4, SR=28.2. The increased excess air in test A2.4 led to a measured reduction in combustion efficiency from 96% to 89%. The LES-based Arches simulations of these two test conditions resulted in a statistically stationary combustion efficiency prediction of 90% and 85%, respectively. Both of these simulations included a refinement to the case setup associated with the operation of the continuous pilots and the description of the vent gas inlets, which significantly improved the prediction of combustion efficiency compared to the results for test A2.1, which we had previously reported in the 2018 conference. |
