Numerical Simulation of Radiative Heat Transfer in a Boiler Furnace Contained with a Non-Gray Gas

The calculation of the heat transfer by radiation in a furnace requires an accurate modeling of the optical properties of the flue gas. In order to reduce the computational effort in engineering calculations, the band radiation of the gaseous combustion products is approximated as a weighted sum of one clear and one or more gray gases (WSGG). The finite volume method (FVM) is used to solve the radiative transfer equation. Validations with benchmarks show satisfactory results when coupling the WSGG model to the FVM. For validation, a scattering analysis is then presented where the effects of the scattering albedo and the phase function are studied. Finally, the WSGG model is applied to a furnace of boiler for prediction of the incident wall radiative heat flux. Comparison between the present numerical results with theoretical data in literatures shows a good consistency.