Performance Simulation Of Wire-pipe Electrostatic Precipitators (ESPs)

Electrostatic precipitator is one of the dust-precipitated equipments whichis the most effective and most widely used. It is feasible to obtain moreaccurate and visual results as the development of the computer science and theapplication of the numerical simulation. The modeling of the electrostaticprecipitator has been an important assistant of designing, evaluating andstudying electrostatic precipitators(ESPs).Most researches are based on the ESPs in existence, just about particlecharging, electric field characteristic, or finding the relationship between theremoval efficiency and some other factors by experiential formula. However,these researches have not been obtained the systemic studying about theremoval efficiency with of its affecting factors. This paper has studied theapplication of the numerical computational software FLUENT in electrostaticprecipitators, built the mathematical Physical model and constructed thegoverning equations (particle charging equation, electric field equation, ionsconservation equation, gas flow by time-averaged conservation equations ofmass and momentum, particle motion and dynamics equations.) and boundaryconditions based on the systemic comprehensive introduction about theparticle removal mechanism by ESPs. At the same time, the complicatedmathematics models have been solved by numerical simulation of FLUENTsoftware. The visual results are shown through the figs, and particle traces areobtained in electrostatic precipitators under different conditions.The collection efficiency is an important parameter of ESPs. The paperhas also studied the relationship between the collection efficiency and theelectrode voltages, the inlet gas velocity, particle size. It obtains that: Theefficiency is increasing with particle size(1～10μm) and voltage of theelectrode(30～80 kV), but decreasing with velocity of inlet gas (0.5～0.9 m/s).The results of the numerical simulation are helpful to research and devise ESP.