The Evaluation of Experimental and Numerical Study of Combustion Process on Mini Traveling Chain Grate Furnace (Incinerator) By Computational Fluid Dynamics Method

The treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW) in Indonesia is mainly conducted by the open dumping which always consumes large area for the process. Such condition definitely generates bad impact in the future considering the rapid growth of the population in the country which demand the space for the residential A rapid and environmentally-friendly treatment for MSW is needed to support the country's sustainability. Incineration process is one of the method to resolve the issue of MSW treatment in the country. Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) had been conducted the study of the incineration process for MSW since 2007. In this research, the evaluation of experimental and numerical study of combustion on Mini Traveling Chain Grate were performed to model the traveling chain grate furnace (incinerator) combustion. The research was divided into two parts, experiment and simulation. The experiment process was performed to obtain the combustion parameters whereas the simulation is performed to model the combustion process occurred in the furnace. The software used for simulation were FLIC (Fluid Dynamic Incinerator Code) and ANSYS FLUENT. FLIC was used to simulate the formation of flue gas produced by fuel combustion along the bed. ANSYS FLUENT was used to simulate the temperature distribution, the combustion reaction, and the flow of combustion gases inside the furnace. The homogeneous solid fuels, i.e. Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB), Coal Briquettes, Coconut Shell Charcoal, and Rice Husk were used as the main samples representing the real MSW. The experimental result showed that the Oil Palm EFB was the only fuel that could be burned completely. It was occurred at chain grate speed of 10.45 m/hour, feed rate of 15.69 kg/hour, air flow of 1.19 m(3)/min, water content 12 %, and the average temperature furnace of 506 degrees C. The combustion problems from the other fuels occurred because the fuel stack did not mix perfectly with the air. Based on the simulation, the average temperature distribution difference between simulations and experiments was 48.4 degrees C. The furnace modification design needs to be done to improve the performance of the furnace so that the problem during the burning process does not reoccur. The main suggested modifications were the addition of the airflow capacity of force draft from one blower into two blowers, while the addition of bottom draft also requires two blowers. The other modification was the addition of a fuel stack height control, fix the burner position, add ash drying zone, and enlarge the induce draft suction power