Numerical analysis now available to a wider range of industries

Numerical analysis is used to accurately analyse the fluid dynamic behaviour of almost any boiler system, heat exchanger or boiler auxiliary equipment and Steinmüller Africa is now positioned to take its suite of process, mechanical and piping engineering services to a wider range of industries.

Recognised as steam generation and heat exchange experts, the South African company can completely assemble numerical models of any original-equipment manufacturer-designed and built plants. This numerical analysis service can be carried out in utility, petrochemicals, paper and pulp, sugar, and nuclear industries.

“We begin by assessing the client’s requirements and the nature of the problem,” explains Steinmüller Africa boiler process engineering group leader Warwick Ham. “This method positions us to make recommendations on the numerical analysis tools to be used, and we always recommend against over-complicating the investigation. These are just two of the factors which drive down costs.”

Accurate geometry of every plant component, the plant’s operating philosophy, and some of the actual operating data are required to accurately build numerical models of any plants. “Once the model is built, we investigate various scenarios to predict the operating characteristics under varying conditions. Often these operating conditions fall outside of the original design envelope,” says Ham.

There are three main tools Steinmuller uses to execute its numerical analysis offering:

• The company’s original Thermal Boiler design software, used in the design of most of the utility boilers currently in operation
• Fluid Dynamic Numerical Analysis
• Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) Numerical Analysis – used to accurately analyse the chemical, fluid and heat transfer processes occurring in boilers and other heat exchange equipment in any industry.

”Although our original boiler design program is still used, our entire suite of numerical analysis tools has been expanded and modernised over the years,” Ham points out.

“Although our numerical analysis offering is related mainly to boiler systems and associated auxiliary equipment, we can use these tools to analyse almost any heat exchanger or fluid dynamic equipment like fans, pumps, valves, and dampers, for example.” Steinmüller has performed mass and energy balance thermal modelling for diverse types of heat exchangers, including fired and unfired boilers, water to steam heat exchangers, fluidised bed boilers, waste heat boilers, fans, air heaters, mills and electrostatic precipitators or fabric filters.

In addition, Steinmüller recently conducted a CFD analysis of various power system subcomponents, combining these component models to form an entire boiler system, which included mills, burners, air heaters, and electrostatic precipitators that remove ash and dust from the flue gas.

“Our numerical modelling helps develop performance improvements in the systems’ various sub-components, which are combined into a single system model that assesses the overall benefits to the entire system,” Ham concludes.