Design Optimization Of Municipal Solid Waste Incinerators Using Mathematical Modeling And Computer Simulation

ABSTRACT

Environmental pollution caused by the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incinerators has raised concerns about the quality of incinerators and the incineration process in Tanzania. Engineers and Scientists in general have appreciated that the installation of functional incinerators will increase the incineration process efficiency. Among the methods to achieve this is the application of mathematical modeling for the incineration process. Literatures have showed that related study in incinerators, incineration process and mathematical modeling in general has received little attention. The broad objective of this study was to optimize the design of municipal solid waste incinerators by using mathematical modeling and computer simulation. Computation Thermal Predictions (CTP) mathematical relations applying different types of incineration parameters including temperature, density, velocity and species concentration were formulated based on theories of incineration process with proper assumptions. The solution of the mathematical model developed was done and accomplished by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Finite element method of numerical analysis was applied during the process to govern temperature and species concentration at different stack height of the model incinerator. Tests were performed on the physical model incinerator and data were analyzed after experiments. These data were applied in testing and verification of the mathematical models and provided the exact temperature and amount of flue gases which can be released from the stack without polluting the atmosphere. The results show that it is possible to forecast temperature and flue gases by the application of mathematical expressions. It also can be applied to develop more and accurate computational thermal predictions (CTP) model for the simulation of incineration process and experimentally regulate temperature and species concentration at different location of the incinerator. The results provided by the computational thermal predictions (CTP) were very close to those of experiments obtained from physical model. Therefore, there is an agreement between the empirical model and experiment as they show true trend of the incineration process.