Modelling Study for Turbulent Combustion of Carbon Deposits Collected from Coke-Oven Walls

Accumulation of carbon deposits on coke-oven walls is an inherent challenge. The air injection technique for removing them is becoming widely adopted in coke-oven operations. A physical model that simulates the turbulent reacting flow of this carbon-deposit removal process is necessary to serve as a numerical analysis tool. Due to a lack of available measurement data for the rate of carbon deposit removal in coke ovens, benchmark data from thermogravimetric experiments were used to validate a developed turbulent combustion model. This study compares the simulation performance of one-film and two-film models for the reaction of carbon deposits and air, as well as turbulence–reaction interactions, these being the eddy dissipation model and a beta-shape probability density function (PDF) method. The physical model using the SST k-ω turbulence model, the two-film model for carbon–air reactions, and a beta-shape PDF method can account for turbulence–reaction interactions and simulate turbulent burning carbon-deposit tests in TG experiments. This model can simulate carbon deposit removal in coke ovens through air injection.