Experimentally determined particle number density statistics in an industrial-scale, pulverized-coal-fired boiler

A study on the variations of particle data rate statistics and the probability density function (PDF) of cumulative particle number density has been completed in a full-scale, tangentially fired, 85 MW e pulverized-coal-fired boiler. Variables in the tests included boiler load and coal type. It was observed that particle data rate fluctuations were greater in magnitude for small particles (< 3.5 μm) and that the PDFs of particle data rate were well approximated by normal distributions. Furthermore, there were no preferential frequencies in the large (73.5 μm) or small particle data rate fluctuations anywhere in the boiler. The PDFs of cumulative particle number density for the small particles were negatively skewed and, as compared to the large particle PDFs, were less sensitive to boiler location