Swirling, reacting, turbulent gas-particle flow in a vortex combustor

A novel vortex combustor (VC) firing various solid, liquid, and gaseous fue ls was recently developed and tested for commercial heating applications. T he combustor is characterized by a strong swirl and low temperature combust ion environment. The paper presents numerical simulations and measurements of the isothermal and reacting gas flow and the gas-particle slip motion in the VC. The results show that the gas flow in the VC with a coaxial center tube and multiple air injection is characterized with swirling, developing , and recirculating features. The swirl intensity is affected by the combus tion in the VC. Swirl provides an effective control of the gas-particle sli p velocity in the VC. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.