[CFD modeling of particulate matter dispersion from Kerman cement plant]

ABSTRACT

The dispersion of particulate matter has been known as the most serious environmental pollution of cement plants. In the present work, dispersion of the particulate matter from stack of Kerman Cement Plant was investigated using Computational Fluid Dynamics [CFD] modeling. In order to study the dispersion of particulate matter from the stack, a calculation domain with dimensions of 8000m X 800m X 400m was considered. The domain was divided to 936781 tetrahedral control volumes. The mixture two-phase model was employed to model the interaction of the particulate matter [dispersed phase] and air [continuous phase]. The Large Eddy Simulation [LES] method was used for turbulence modeling. The concentration of particulate matter in the whole calculation domain was computed. The predicted concentrations were compared to the measured values from the literature and a good agreement was observed. The predicted concentration profiles at different cross sections were analyzed. The results of the present work showed that CFD is a useful tool for understanding the dispersion of particulate matter in air. Although the obtained results were promising, more investigations on the properties of the dispersed phase, turbulent parameters and the boundary layer effect is needed to obtain more accurate results: