Experimental and numerical study of woodchips combustion in an underfeed stoker boiler

Temperature and gas composition measurements are performed in different locations above the fire pit of a small fixed bed boiler fed with biomass woodchips. These experimental data show a large spatial variation of the values, thus suggesting that the any biomass bed model, to be eventually coupled with the freeboard numerical model, should be able to take into account such variability. Hence a numerical model of the boiler is developed by treating the biomass bed region as porous domain with sources and sinks of energy and chemical species.