RADIATIVE HEAT-TRANSFER IN AN INDUSTRIAL- WASTE INCINERATOR - APPLICATION OF THE ZONE METHOD

In the context of resource conservation, incineration of domestic wast es is a technique allowing an interesting potential in energy valoriza tion. However, because of the variability (annual, monthly) in quality and quantity of raw material, one of the characteristics of waste inc ineration cogeneration power plants is their frequent partial or exces s loading. In order to describe their behaviour at these non-nominal l oads, there is a need for simulation tools which predict with accuracy the behaviour of the principal components of the plant at these loads . This paper presents an original approach for predicting the heat tra nsfer in a waste incinerator. In particular, the model developed is ap plied to and validated with measurements from a waste incinerator loca ted at the Cottendart waste incineration cogeneration power plant in S witzerland. The part of the incinerator studied is characterized by hi gh gas temperatures (1 000-500 degrees C) for which radiative heat tra nsfer represents the most important part of the global heat exchange. A three-dimensional model using nodal analysis is proposed. The radiat ive heat exchange is treated using the zone method. With a fine enough mesh, the behaviour of the system in regions far from the nominal poi nt can be predicted with very high accuracy. This paper describes the model and the simulation results.