Transient behavior of an industrial-scale coke oven: CFD modeling and simulation with a fully coupled heating and coking model

A comprehensive simulation of the commercial coking oven with coupled heating and coking chambers is a challenge due to the complex interaction between transfer and reactions in and between them. Herein, based on a full-scale oven with coking chambers of 6 m in height, a 3D coupled CFD model was established for a representative oven composed of one coking chamber sandwiched in two half-heating-flues with the coking part including submodels for water evaporation and condensation, volatiles release, and coal blend porosity variation. The fueling rate was varied to accommodate the heating requirement of the coking chamber in a cycle. Transient simulations were carried out spanning the complete coking cycle for detailed insights into the coking process at both spatial and temporal resolutions. Comparative simulations were performed to examine the effects of heating flue configuration and coal blend property on coking process, and found that the fuel gas inlet diameter played a significant role with the diameter of 30 mm as the most favorable, and the increase of volatiles content in coal blend could significantly prolong the duration of coking process as a consequence of the endothermic behavior of volatile-releasing.