Counteracting ring formation in rotary kilns (Q368148)

The authors study a model which accounts for the production of cement in a rotary kiln. During this production process, rings may occur which may lead to shutdowns of the production in severe cases. The model starts with the Navier-Stokes equations which describe the conservation of the overall mass, of the concentration of the \(N\) species which are involved, of the momentum and of the energy. The authors here quote these equations from the books of \textit{F. A. Williams} [Combustion theory. New York: Westview Press (1994)] and of \textit{K. K. Kuo} [Principles of combustion. Chichester: Wiley (1999; Zbl 1050.80503)]. They then introduce the Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes equations rewriting the above conservation laws. They also introduce a turbulence model based on Boussinesq's assumption, leading to a so-called realizable \(k\)-\(\varepsilon\) model. The main part of the paper presents a numerical resolution of this model based on the finite volume technique and implemented in the software \texttt{STAR-CCM}\(^{+}\). The authors describe the cases of standard and modified operating conditions, considering the ratio between air and fuel. They prove that when this ratio increases from 9 to 12 the peaks in radiative heat transfer which creates the rings reduce in the zones of ring formation. Many figures illustrate the properties of the solution.