Masters Theses

Reid L. Kress

Date of Award

6-1982

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Mechanical Engineering

Major Professor

H. J. Wilkerson

Abstract

This thesis covers the design of a valve cap coal feed system for an atmospheric fluidized bed combustion unit. The system is a flat cap within a cage which operates as a check valve, allowing coal to be injected into the bed, but preventing bed material from draining down into the feed line. The cap was required to remain fully open with an air volumetric flow rate of 97.3 cubic feet per minute at 80°F and 14.3 psia which corresponds to the requirements of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) 20MW pilot plant located in Paducah, Kentucky. An additional requirement was for the cap to be thick enough to have a reason-able life expectancy when subjected to the abrasive conditions of coal feed operation.

The design was effected by conceiving candidate valve cap systems, testing them in an ambient temperature, atmospheric pressure fluidized bed and iterating the design using the experimental results. The valve cap systems were subjected to numerous air only and air plus solids tests in order to cover their full spectrum of operating modes.

The result of the design and test steps was a valve cap system which operated according to the design specifications and a sufficient base of data to allow a valve cap to be designed for similar, but slightly different conditions. The cap developed has added potential for wear prevention as a consequence of its unique recessed design.

Three additional feeder designs and a limited amount of experimental data are presented in the appendices. These designs include two below-bed feeders: a flat plate and a sphere cap. The third feeder, the four-arm cross, is a combination coal feed system and fluidization system.

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