2008 International

ANSYS Conference

CFD Analysis of Condensation Process

Occurring Inside High Efficiency Boilers

Jenny Cheng, P.Eng and Alexander Ene, P.Eng

GSW Water Heating Company
Fergus, ON. Canada

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 Modeling Strategy
• Finned tube simplification
Finned tube area modeled using porous media; a
sub-model is used to determine the proper C2
(pressure drop) and porosity (conductive heat
transfer) values.
• Coupled water-gas analysis
Simultaneous modeling of water flow on water
side and combustion coupled heat transfer on
the flue gas side.
• Condensation modeling
Heat transfer enhancement on the flue gas side
due to water vapor condensing on the heat
exchanger surface modeled using in-house UDF.
Condensing technology: The recovery of the water vapor latent heat
contained in the flue by condensing the vapors in the cold part of the
water heater heat exchanger
• Hydrocarbon combustion lead to 14% water vapor in flue gases
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 Boiler Solid Model
• Thermal efficiency of current
Wire mesh burner boiler is 84% without
condensing input.
• By using condensing
technology, thermal efficiency
can exceed 90%

Finned tube

Combustion chamber
Water flow passes
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 CFD Modeling

Simplified finned tubes

Burner ports (Fuel-air mixture inlet)

Water inlet

Water outlet

Porous material:
Flue outlet -Solid-Fluid porosity
(heat transfer)
Combustion Chamber Water domain -Radial pressure drop
through finned tubes
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 Finned Tube Simplification
Water inlet
Hot air inlet Detail fin: Simplified fin: Porous
Solid copper flue & copper
Sub-model

Finned tube
Air outlet Water outlet
Mesh
size Detail Simplified
Cells: 579,955 147,455
Faces: 1,345,868 319,893
Nodes: 208,231 42,209
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 Finned Tube Simplification
Temperature Pressure Velocity
(oF) (Pa) (m/s)

Detail fin (Solid copper)

Simplified fin (porous)

• Porosity – related to heat transfer (0.68)
• Pressure drop - Inertial resistance C2 (750 [1/m])

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 Finned Tube Simplification

Temperature distribution (oF) in vertical section

Detail fin Simplified fin

Detailed Simplified
Outlet-water (ºF) 77.1 75.9
Outlet- flue (ºF) 1363 1785
Pressure drop (Pa) 0.054 0.053
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 Simulation Methodology
Steady state, combustion on flue gas path and radiation effects
considered, phase change on the water side (boiling) not modeled,
fin space simplified as a porous material, no wall roughness effect
considered

• UDF code was developed to model coupled water-gas

(combustion included) process:
– Defining the different material properties (density,
viscosity and thermal conductivity) on combustion-
mixture and water, separately
• Computational models:
– Turbulence – k- epsilon standard & wall function
– Combustion – Finite-Rate/Eddy-Dissipation
– Radiation – DO (Discrete Ordinates)
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 Boundary Conditions
Nominal Input Rate: 500,000 Btu/hr
Thermal efficiency tests
Test A- Test methodology for water heater (ΔT=70oF);
Test B- Test methodology for boiler (ΔT=100oF);
• Flue-gas side boundary conditions
– Inlet
• Mass flow rate – based on nominal input rate
• Mass fraction (CH4 & O2) – based on air-excess requested
– Outlet: Pressure
• Water side boundary conditions
– Inlet
• Mass flow rate - tuned to meet the temperature increase ΔT requested
– Outlet: Pressure
• Porous (fin) zone conditions
– Flue & copper porous material, flue porosity, inertial resistance in
radial & circumferential directions
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 CFD Results – Flow Path Lines

Test A Test B

Water flow path lines colored by temperature distribution (oF)

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 CFD Results – Flow Field

Section Y=0 Section x=0

Test A (water heater). Flow pattern in two vertical sections
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 CFD Results - Temperature Field

Temperature (oF) in a vertical plane Heat flux (W/m2) in inner finned tubes

Results of Test A (Water heater)

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 Comparison between CFD and Lab

Test A Test B
(water heater) (boiler)
Lab CFD Lab CFD
Water temp. increase (oF)
69 69.2 100 99
Mass flow rate of water
0.7630 0.7625 0.5234 0.5230
(kg/s)
Fuel consumption 0.13125 0.1367 0.13124 0.1367
(ft3/s) @ STD Natural gas CH4 Natural gas CH4
Thermal Efficiency (%) 84.31 83.78 83.88 82.48

Note: When operating as a water heater (Test A), the outlet water temperature will
be 140oF, while operating like a boiler (Test B) the outlet temperature will be 180
oF. There is no actual boiling (phase change) occurring within the water path of

the boiler.
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 Proposed High- efficiency Boiler

Condensing in
finned tubes

Flue outlet
Condensing in
bottom surfaces

Expected condensing regions with

low temperature (< dew point)
Bottom chamber
(T <T_dew )
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 Condensation Modeling Methodologies
Modeling options

• Input a transport/reaction model

– Use DEFINE_VR_RATE micro to specify a custom
volumetric reaction rate for H2O(vapor) Æ H2O (liquid)
to let the reaction takes place where the cell
temperature is lower than the vapor dew point (T_dew)
– Challenge: Difficult to arrive at a “realistic” set of
parameters without going through a few combinations

• Input source/sink terms

– Apply DEFINE_SOURCE micro to specify custom
source terms for energy and H2O vapor/liquid species
mass fraction transport equations
– Technically easier to approach, but need to “manually”
calculate amount of H2O (vapor) mass to be condensed
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 Condensation Modeling Methodologies
Condensing Vapor mass flow calculation

• In a finned tube (porous) domain:

• The mass flow m1 coming into
C0; T0 C1; T1 C2; T2 the condensation zone is
m0 m1 m2 m3 subjected to condensation
• Condensing takes place in
Condensation zone: T1, T2<T_dew cells satisfying T_cell <T_dew
Non-condensation zone: T0 >T_dew

• On a flat wall (bottom chamber):

• The mass flow m going through the condensation zone
T_wall m
being in the first layer of boundary mesh is subjected to
condensation
• Condensation takes place in cells satisfying
– T_wall < T_dew
Condensation zone: at least one face of the cell is on the wall and T_wall <T_dew
Non-condensation zone: the cell is not in the adjacent of the wall or T_wall >T_dew
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Evaluation of Proposed Boiler Features

Velocity vector Temperature

Velocity (m/s) and temperature (oF) in a vertical

section of flue-gas side
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Evaluation of Condensation Model

Existed model Improved high-efficiency concepts

Mass fraction of possible condensed water liquid in

the porous (finned tubes) zone

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Evaluation of Condensation Model

Condensing region in
the bottom chamber
with low temperature
(< dew point)

Comparison between CFD and Lab

CFD Lab

Condensing rate (kg/s) 0.0 0.00181 0.00196

Thermal Efficiency (%) < 90.0 93.0 92.0

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 Conclusions

• The developed CFD methodology is capable to predict

the thermal efficiency of boilers with reasonable accuracy
by validating with test. Modeling simplification
assumptions related to the finned tubes and wire mesh
burners are effective
• Condensing heat transfer modeling has been developed
and the methodology has been refined by comparing its
predictions with further experimental data.
• Based on the current condensation modeling
methodology, the optimized design solutions have been
explored to achieve the target high efficiency. The
significant contribution to the overall heat transfer
enhancement was found as a result of the water vapor
condensation process on the flue gas side.
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