Temperature Distribution of Biodiesel Blends Combustion in Boiler using CFD-Fluent

Abstract

The use of biodiesel have been tested on some combustion devices extensively, including on the boiler. Biodiesel blends use in boiler is possibly affected the behaviour of combustion. It can be evaluated by analysing the exhaust gas composition and temperature. This study is conducted to show the distribution of temperature in the combustion chamber and boiler stack’s using Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) software Fluent. Experimentally, the tests carried out on the fire tube boiler vertical type cylinder with pressure of 3 bar. Temperature measurement is performed at three points in the combustion chamber and boilers’ stack using optional thermocouple and gas analyzer IMR 1400. The biodiesel used in the tests is palm oil based with blending portion varies from 5-25%. The results show that in the higher blend of biodiesel, the temperature of combustion chamber tend to be lower but the exhaust gas temperature at the end of the chimney was likely to increase. On the other hand, the simulation using FLUENT showed the pattern of temperature distribution was relatively equal between the use of biodiesel in the blends under 25% compared to the use of diesel (B0).