Constructal law optimization of a boiler

Abstract

The paper aims at the optimization of the design of a biomass boiler under the inspiration of the Constructal Law by Bejan. The boiler is of the smoke tubes typology, fuel being biomass pellets. The smoke tubes are 16 and are placed in a staggered configuration. A model is built in MATLAB environment, based on empirical correlations and the mean log temperature methodology. The analysis is based on the development of a wide parametric analysis that involves variations of diameters, numbers and positioning of the tubes. Results are based on the concept of the overall performance coefficient methodology and investigate both the pressure drops variation and the thermal power generated in the different configurations’ boiler. However, since the aim of the boiler is to guarantee a fixed thermal power output to the users, results are also presented by fixing the thermal power output and adding as variable the volume of tubes adopted as an indicator to quantify materials required to achieve the same output. While from the point of view of pressure losses there is a clear best solution, this is not the case if the material uses minimization and pressure drops minimization are jointly analyzed. This leads to the need to a trade-off in performance to identify a best case.