Two particle treatments, thermally thin and thick, are applied to Eulerian combustion modeling for biomass packed beds and tested through the simulation of an experimental plant. The paper shows the efficiency of the Eulerian approach for large packed beds and tests the behavior of both particle treatments, tested with in-bed and flame temperatures and released volatiles measurements at different locations, which is not common in the literature for a full size boiler. Both approaches are implemented in a model with a comprehensive framework that includes several submodels for the thermal conversion kinetics, bed motion, heat and mass transfer with the gas phase, and gas flow and reaction. Two experiments are performed with wood chips fuels with different moisture contents. The simulations of the two cases result in reasonably good predictions for both particle treatments. The results are similar for higher moisture content and, for the low-moisture test, the bed temperature distribution and reaction fronts are slightly different due to the different predictions of the drying and devolatilization fronts. The volatile measurements show that the T. Thin model results in slightly more accurate predictions than the T. Thick, possibly because the wood chips have a more thermally thin behavior.

Acknowledgments. This research was financially supported by the project PID2021-126569OB-I00 of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (Spain). Funding for open access charge: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG.