Strong market forces, such as deregulation, have dramatically transformed how electric power generation takes place around the world. The new power generation landscape requires power producers to search for new and innovative strategies to maximize returns and stay ahead of the competition. Ever expanding and more stringent environmental regulations force coal-fired unit operators to consider a myriad of emission control options. Concerns over pollutant emissions and a growing global energy demand are also driving a renewed interest in the nuclear power sector. At the same time, technological advances, most notably the increased efficiency and reliability of combustion turbines in combined-cycle/co-generation systems, are playing a critical role in reshaping the power generation marketplace. Innovative solutions like fuel cell technology, and renewable energy resources, like wind and wave power, together with new biomass boilers, are also being investigated. While managers weigh the costs and benefits of the various power generation options available today, many have found CFD to be an important tool for profitably achieving cleaner, more efficient and reliable power generation.

For nearly two decades, engineers have been using CFD to address complex fluid flow and heat transfer problems encountered in virtually all types of power generation equipment. During this time, CFD software, like the power industry, has seen dramatic changes and has evolved to meet new challenges. CFD simulations provide users with a wealth of valuable information on power plant process performance, including flow and temperature distribu- tion, pressure drop, species concentrations, mixing patterns, flame shapes, and wall heat fluxes. In short, today's CFD software provides power industry users with a comprehensive virtual modeling tool for predicting many types of fluid f low and heat transfer phenomena.

"With the recent increase of fuel prices and electrical power costs, wood-fired power boilers are becoming more attractive. At ALSTOM Power, CFD has been used extensively to quantify performance improvements for boiler upgrades. FLUENT CFD provides a visual and quantitative perspective on important combustion parameters. Today, many of our customers are benefiting from this important technology."

-Paul Chapman
Senior Consulting Engineer
Power Plant Laboratories - ALSTOM Power

CFD Adds Value

A key ingredient to CFD's value in the power generation market has been its ability to significantly reduce the time and expense involved in the design, optimization, trouble-shooting, and repair of power generation equipment. Traditionally, physical scale models and prototypes, along with simple rules of thumb and empirical correlations, have been the power engineer's main tools. In many instances, iterative trial and error approaches have been the best available recourse. Using CFD, models are built and analyzed at a fraction of the cost and effort required for physical testing, allowing extra time for parametric studies and design optimization. In an increasingly competitive environment, the use of CFD to shorten design cycles, reduce system costs, improve performance, and shorten unit outages can result in millions of dollars of savings. Indeed, the use of CFD has generated big savings for many power industry customers during the past decade.

In addition, CFD modeling is a non-intrusive tool that can provide insights into fluid flow problems that would be too costly or physically prohibitive to explore by experimental techniques alone, especially in some of the inhospitable environments found in power generation equipment. The insight and understanding that are gained from CFD simulations give added confidence to design proposals at reduced risk, avoiding the need to design by oversizing and over-specification.

Advances in Software and Hardware

Advances in the field of CFD, led by Fluent, are fueling greater use and productivity of flow modeling in the power generation industry. The ability to create a CFD model, generate a solution, extract meaningful insights, and effectively communicate results in the shortest amount of time has a direct impact on productivity. Enhanced CAD import features, fully unstructured meshing technologies, and automated meshing tools have significantly reduced the time required for model creation. These tools enable CFD users to produce higher quality meshes, more robust simulations, and more accurate engineering predictions. More intuitive GUI interfaces have replaced text menus at all stages of the CFD process, and today's postprocessing tools make analyzing results more insightful than ever. Today's suite of state-of-the-art models allows CFD practitioners to perform a wide range of sophisticated analyses, including those involving turbulence, mixing, combustion, multiphase, and rotating machinery. With a growing variety of time tested and proven tools, engineers are able to address, with confidence, a greater variety of applications.

"Fluent has become the essential engineering tool RJM Corporation uses to minimize cost of product to our customers. CFD modeling enables us to design very complex, totally customized products and to demonstrate them to the customer before the manufacturing process even begins. As a result, 95% of our products are installed and start up without any further adjustments or modifications. This is a dramatic improvement over historic performance results."

-Richard J. Monro
President
RJM Corporation

Recent improvements in computer hardware performance and lowered costs, combined with the introduction of parallel processing and load sharing technologies have dramatically reduced turnaround times for model simulations. These technologies have allowed engineering departments to take greater advantage of available hardware resources and have paved the way for creating larger, more realistic simulations.

Targeted CFD Services

Along with the products themselves, CFD services play a critical role in maximizing the overall value of CFD for the customer. Industry-focused sales, support, and consulting engineers can apply specific expertise and experience to each customer's problem. When combined with training courses, workshops, and expanding web-based resources, customers can benefit from a continually growing assortment of CFD services that are now available.

The changes that are occurring in today's power generation market could not have been imagined a decade ago, and neither could the changes in CFD modeling. Easier to use CFD tools, a broader selection of physical models, and more comprehensive, industry-focused customer services are making CFD an increasingly valuable asset to companies doing business in a competitive power generation market. In the future, CFD tools will need to continue to evolve to meet customer needs. Advances will include technologies that make CFD software more robust, easier to use, and more customizable. The integration of CFD software with CAD/CAE packages, systems-level software, and optimization algorithms will also play an important role in future developments. The introduction of next-generation models to address the power generation industry's emerging technologies like fuel cells, f luidization, and gasification are already being addressed by state-of-the-art physical models in FLUENT.

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