CPFD Software to Highlight Simulation Software for Gasifiers at GTC's Gasification Technologies Conference in San Francisco

CPFD Software, LLC, the creators of the Barracuda® simulation package for particle-fluid systems, will be exhibiting at the 2011 Gasification Technologies Conference sponsored by the Gasification Technology Council. The conference is in San Francisco, CA, October 9-12, 2011. This is the world’s largest conference focused on gasification technologies and covers topics from coal and biomass gasification to IGCC (integrated gasification combined cycle), CCS (carbon capture and storage), and related topics. Participants gain an updated view of the world’s gasification projects, status, and plans, plus hear about the latest technologies related to gasification. CPFD Software will be exhibiting in Booth #34.

Dr. Chris Guenther, of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (Morgantown, WV) will be presenting CFD simulation work done by NETL that includes some Barracuda results. CPFD Software’s Barracuda CFD package has been employed for the design of gasifiers for years because of its unique capacity to model reacting particle-fluid flows in both dilute and dense-packed regimes simultaneously. Using Barracuda, designers can predict with greater accuracy how their designs will operate. Barracuda can predict fluidization characteristics, flow patterns of solids and gases, hot or cold spots, and local or global chemistry. Since Barracuda has the ability to model particle size distribution (PSD) in detail, it can also calculate and show the effects of particle size changes as, for example, coal or biomass particles are consumed.

Representing CPFD will be Dr. Ken Williams, Co-Founder, and Scott Thibault, Vice President of Sales & Marketing. This is the third year that CPFD Software has attended the conference and their second year exhibiting. “Last year’s conference in Washington, D.C. was outstanding,” said Dr. Williams. “I never would have thought so many thought leaders from the gasification community could be gathered in one place. There are academics, government representatives, equipment suppliers, engineering/procurement/construction contractors, plant operators, and financiers all present and talking together. No one with a strong interest in gasification should miss this conference.”

CPFD Software’s booth will feature videos of gasification simulations for coal and biomass gasifiers with and without chemical reactions. CPFD’s representatives will be available to discuss how CPFD’s clients use Barracuda for a range of needs related to gasification: scaling up to commercial-size units; ensuring proper mixing of gas and particles; design of spargers, solids feeds, heaters, etc.; ensuring proper residence time; and the effects of chemistry on conversion and emissions. The booth will also have information and a technical paper on Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) in which a full CLC rig modeled by NETL was simulated in Barracuda, with simulation and experimental results compared. This paper was presented at the Chemical Looping Combustion Conference in Lyon, France in March 2010. Information on the use of Barracuda for development of Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS) technologies will also be available.