A comparison of industrial-scale (471 MWe) radiometer heat flux measurements between pulverized-coal and 85% coal/15% biomass co-firing combustion

Other conference contribution, 2021

This work evaluates and compares radiative heat transfer measurements conducted at the 471 MWe Hunter Powerplant Unit 3 utility boiler in Utah, USA, during commercial operation with coal and during tests with co-firing of coal and biomass. The coal used was a Utah sourced bituminous coal, which was mixed with 15 wt% of torrefied wood in the co-firing test. The measurements were gathered using two different narrow angle radiometers and one ellipsoidal radiometer to measure the radiative heat flux. Data were gathered at several floors through port openings in the boiler wall and the samplings were spread out over several hours. Additionally, the gas temperature was measured at positions close to the inner walls of the different floors. Overall, the measured heat fluxes decreased with increasing boiler floor level, and while the measurement data spread is rather high for each measurement, the data spreads for both fuel conditions significantly overlap each other, indicating that it is likely the heat flux profile remains unchanged when running either type of fuel.