Research Investigations at the Municipal (2×35) and Clinical (2×5 MW) Waste Incinerators in Sheffield, UK

After recycle of spent materials has been optimised, there remains a proportion of waste which must be dealt with in the most environmentally friendly manner available. For materials such as municipal waste, clinical waste, toxic waste and special wastes such as tyres, incineration is often the most appropriate technology. The study of incineration must take a process system approach covering the following aspects: ${\bullet}$ Collection and blending of waste, ${\bullet}$ The two stage combustion process, ${\bullet}$ Quenching, scrubbing and polishing of the flue gases, ${\bullet}$ Dispersion of the flue gases and disposal of any solid or liquid effluent. The design of furnaces for the burning of a bed of material is being hampered by lack of an accurate mathematical model of the process and some semi-empirical correlations have to be used at present. The prediction of the incinerator gas phase flow is in a more advanced stage of development using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis, although further validation data is still required. Unfortunately, it is not possible to scale down many aspects of waste incineration and tests on full scale incinerators are essencial. Thanks to a close relationship between SUWIC and Sheffield Heat&Power Ltd., an extended research programme has been carried out ar the Bernard Road Incinerator plant in Sheffield. This plant consists of two Municipal(35 MW) and two Clinical (5MW) Waste Incinerators which provide district heating for a large part of city. The heat is distributed as hot water to commercial, domestic ( >5000 dwelling) and industrial buildings through 30km of 14" pipes plus a smaller pipe distribution system. To improve the economics, a 6 MW generator is now being added to the system.