Gasifier simulation with MFIX-DEM

Full-loop, lab-scale gasifier simulation with MFIX-DEM

This MFIX-DEM simulation tracks over a million particles in a gasifier, accounting for the mass, momentum, and energy transfer between the particles and the gas phase: (left) particles colored with solids temperature and (right) CO mass fraction in the gas-phase.

This is an MFIX-DEM simulation of a full loop, lab-scale gasifier.  Coal and ash particles flow and react with air and steam flowing upwards in the riser (on the right of the device). The particles are separated from the fuel gas by the cyclone (top-left). The fuel gas exits from the top of the cyclone. The particles leave from the bottom of the cyclone, flow through the standpipe and J-valve (left), and return to the riser.

This MFIX-DEM simulation tracks over 1 million reacting particles, coupled to the gas phase through interphase mass, momentum, and energy transfer. The particles are composed of carbon, volatiles, moisture and ash.

The gas is composed of O2, CO, CO2, CH4, H2, H2O, N2. The animations show the time evolution of the gasifier over a 10-minute period: (Left panel) Particles colored by the solids temperature. (Right panel) Volume rendering of CO mass fraction; grey surfaces indicate regions in the gasifier where the rate of the water-gas shift reaction is large. This animation represents the current state-of-the-art in CFD-DEM (computational fluid dynamics — discrete element method) simulations.

The MFIX-Exa project will advance this capability so that billions of reacting particles can be tracked in a full-loop reactor, making it feasible to simulate a pilot-scale chemical looping reactor in a time-to-solution small enough to enable simulation-based reactor design and optimization.

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