Baranov I. Improving the highly loaded coal-water slurry fuel transportation efficiency in the hydro-transport systems of industrial enterprises

The dissertation is devoted to solving a scientific problem of improving the highly loaded coal-water slurry fuel transportation efficiency in the hydro-transport systems of industrial enterprises due to the reduction of energy consumption for transportation and material resources for the construction and operation of an industrial hydro-transport system. As a result of the analysis of the functioning of the various industrial hydro-transport system in Ukraine and developed countries, it was found that the existing technologies for the transportation of the highly loaded coal-water slurry fuel did not take into account the specifics of its preparation technology in terms of the properties of the original coal and did not assume observance of rational proportions of different fractions of the coal-water slurry fuel granulometric composition. The lack of a fairly accurate method and model for determining the hydraulic parameters of transporting coal-water slurry fuel in the industrial hydro-transport system greatly complicates the transport services process for consumers of the coal-water slurry fuel. Methods of specification of the granulometric composition bimodality have been proposed, laboratory tests have been carried out, initial rheological properties for mathematical modelling of the spatial three-dimensional coal-water slurry fuel flow in the systems of industrial hydro-transport are determined taking into account the parameters of the bimodal granulometric composition. A mathematical model of the spatial three-dimensional flow of the coal-water slurry fuel was developed on the basis of the SST turbulence model based on the solution of the Navier-Stokes equation. As a result of the calculations, the values of pressure loss, flow rate and velocity distribution over the cross section of the pipeline in the straight section and in the turn were determined, which allowed to determine the energy consumption during the coal-water slurry fuel transportation in the industrial hydro-transport systems. As a result of the cycle of the experiments carried out, the influence of the granulometric composition factor on the value of the specific hydraulic resistance of the coal-water slurry fuel is confirmed, which allows determining its optimal size and thus significantly (by 1.4 times) reducing energy consumption for transportation by an industrial hydro-transport system. The effectiveness of the proposed granulometric composition criterion for coal-water slurry fuel, which is expressed in reducing the power consumption for its transportation by industrial hydro-transport, has been determined. Based on the optimization of the configuration of the pipeline network of an industrial enterprise, the parameters of the hydro-transport system were determined, which allowed minimizing the energy consumption for transporting coal-water slurry fuel and reducing the material consumption of the transport pipeline network. The optimal configuration of the industrial enterprise pipeline network has been determined, while the cost of transporting 1 tkm of cargo when using a sequential-beam transport scheme has decreased compared to road transport.