- Title
- Computational fluid dynamics design and performance testing of a cyclone heat exchanger used in a gasification plant
- Creator
- George, Tomy
- Subject
- Computational fluid dynamics Renewable energy sources Biomass gasification
- Date Issued
- 2019
- Date
- 2019
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/19087
- Identifier
- vital:39877
- Description
- Renewable energy resources are considered to be the most promising source of energy in the coming centuries owing to its potential to get replenished by the nature itself. However, there are a number of challenges that are to be addressed prior to considering a particular resource as a reliable and effective one according to the energy demand fluctuations. Energy extracted from the biomass available in the nature has a lot of potential especially in the case of producing energy from syngas produced by the controlled burning of wood. This research deals with the minimisation of energy wastage in a gasification plant where syngas is produced from wood and transferred to an internal combustion engine to further generate electrical energy. The syngas produced from the wood is to be fed through a cyclone for purification before it can be fed into the IC engine, where the dust, carbon and other impurities are separated from the syngas by making use of the centrifugal force developed inside the cyclone. This syngas is further cooled and fed into the IC engine in its purest form as specified by the requirements of the engine. It is envisaged that if it is possible to recover the heat energy otherwise wasted in the cyclone and through the cooling circuit, it can be used for preheating the wood or for other minor heating purposes, and thereby the heat wastage can be minimised. Therefore, in this research, a series of numerical investigation conducted which involved the modelling of heat exchanger around a cyclone in order to extract heat from the surface of the cyclone. Two basic design of the Heat exchanger were considered in the study, a rectangular and a conical design. With a water flow rate of 2 l/min in conical design, the heat absorbed by the water was found to be 5.555 kJ/s and in rectangular design, the heat absorbed by the water was 4.872 kJ/s. An experimental analysis conducted to validate the simulation by a rectangular Heat exchanger shows the amount of heat absorbed by the water is 4.87 kJ/s. In a study with variable water flow rate through the jacket, it is observed that heat absorbed by the water in conical heat exchanger is more than heat absorbed by the water in rectangular jacket within the flow rate of 4 l/min. and the heat absorbed by the water in rectangular heat exchanger is higher than conical heat exchanger with water flow rate above 4 l/min.
- Format
- 90 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Science and Agriculture
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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UFH Department of Physics
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | GEORGE_201214388_ MSC DISSERTATION.pdf | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |