Closure to “Discussions of ‘Thermal Performance Evaluation of MSW-Fired Steam Generators—A New Approach’” (1983, ASME J. Energy Resour. Technol., 105, pp. 417–419)

Abstract

The authors are to be complimented for presenting an interesting new approach to the always tedious procedure of testing large incinerators with waterwall furnaces and boilers for energy recovery.The greatest "unknown" in determining an incinerator performance is always the heating value of the everchanging heterogeneous composition of the MSW (municipal solid waste). It is therefore almost useless to attempt to collect a representative sample of the MSW for calorimetric analysis, especially for large incinerators such as indicated under reference [2] in this paper, which is based on a daily throughput of 600 t/day or 25 t/hr or 50,000 lb/hr.To obtain a representative performance picture, the selected test period for such a unit should be at least 8 hr, during which 2001 of representative MSW is to be burned.Even when collecting typical samples at 15-min intervals during an 8-hr test run, assuming that a 2.5-kg calorimeter instead of the usual 10-g sample were available, only 80 kg or 176 lb out of 400,000 lb, which equals 0.044 percent, would be analyzed.27,580 lb/hr 289,900 lb/hr In conclusion, it can be said that any disregard of the