Assessment of Self-Heating in Wood Pellets by FE Modelling

The self-heating process in a laboratory scale experiment has been modelled using the Comsol Multiphysics software. In the simulations the gas flow and air movement in the volume and heat diffusion in the bulk were taken into account however only one reaction in the pellets bulk is considered. The input data is found from measurements of the reaction chemistry and the heat transfer properties. It is found that all relevant physics is needed in order to obtain reasonable predictions in particular the heat transfer between the bulk and the gas is important but also condensation and evaporation of moisture.