Experimental investigation and performance simulation of hot air generation system using producer gas as fuel instead of light diesel oil to determine thermal performance De-rating factor (part I)

Abstract

The present study is concerned with assessment of the thermal performance of a typical heat transfer system, viz. Hot Air Generator (HAG) used in drying applications. The thermal performance of operations of hot air generation is assessed using two fundamentally different types of fuels, Light Diesel Oil (LDO) and Producer Gas (PG). Both the fuels have their own fuel specific thermo- economic advantages and limitations. They are with reference to fuel cost, capital cost, operation & maintenance (O&M) cost, nature of combustion, pattern of heat release, etc. For this an experimental set-up is designed and commissioned and experiments are conducted to develop correlations for predicting performance of hot air generator, for both LDO & PG driven HAG. Based on the correlations developed, performance of hot air generation was simulated for the entire range of possible operations, for both LDO as well as for PG operations. On the basis of equivalent fuel consumption, equal energy input to the HAG for the generation of hot air is considered for the present analysis. Simulation applied to both the cases gives explicit data generation in terms of various mass flow rates, temperature and pressure of hot air and surface temperatures for single equivalent fuel consumption. Based on this a de-rating factor was estimated, due to the fuel switch over. "Thermal Performance De-rating factor", of at the most 21% is observed in the energy quality of hot air, for the low temperature application (75 to 300 °C).