• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.175-182
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• 2018

Accumulation of coal ash at the boiler wall reduces combustion and fuel efficiency. The design of a wall blower is important to effectively remove coal ash. We present numerical results for the removal of coal ash from boiler walls of domestic coal-fired power plants, associated with the computational fluid dynamics for the flow from spray nozzle to boiler wall. The numerical model simulates an erosion process in which the multiphase fluid comprising saturated vapor and fluid water is sprayed from the nozzle, and the water particles impact the boiler wall. We adopt the Finnie erosion model for water particles. We obtain the erosion rate density as a function of nozzle angle and its injection angle. As excessive coal ash removal usually induces damage to the boiler wall, the removal operation typically focuses on a large area with uniform depth rather than the maximum removal of coal ash at a specific location. In order to estimate the removal performance of the wall blower nozzle considering several functionality and reliability factors, we evaluate the optimal injection and nozzle angles with respect to the biggest cumulative and highest erosion rates, as well as the widest range and lowest standard deviation of the erosion rate distribution.