PSI - Issue 77

Nikola Čajová Kantová et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 77 (2026) 170 – 176 Čajová Kantová et al./ St ructur al Integrity Procedia 00 (2026) 000 – 000

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4. Conclusion Emissions of particulate matter from the combustion of solid fuels in small-scale heating systems are a significant issue. This article aims to improve PM capture efficiency through electrostatic precipitation. It explores the basic principle of a single electrode in a chimney tubular precipitator, expanding it to a configuration featuring four tubular precipitation chambers. This enhancement increases the collection area by a factor of 1.6. With the increased collection area, the efficiency of particle capture also increases. However, to ensure high efficiency, it is also necessary to ensure a uniform flow of flue gas with contained particles through all tubes. Therefore, the screw construction was placed into the 4-tubular separator with the aim to direct the flow of flue gases. CFD simulations were created with the aim to compare the velocity distribution in an electrostatic precipitator with four tubes, both with and without a screw construction to direct the flow. To maintain structural integrity under operational conditions in the combustion process, the design of the screw construction, the multi-tubular configuration, and other components should be adapted to withstand thermal stresses and mechanical loads caused by the flue gas flow. Based on the results, it can be concluded that flue gases flow non-uniformly when the screw construction was not included. After including this construction, it caused flue gases to flow more uniformly which has a good impact on the efficiency of the electrostatic precipitator. The used construction caused that an average velocity in tube 1 increased from 0.249 to 0.605 m/s, in tube 2 decreased from 1.157 to 0.935 m/s, in tube 3 insignificantly increased from 1.025 to 1.032 and in tube 4 increased from 0.253 to 0.772 m/s. The particle velocity confirmed that the flue gas has been more uniform. 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