Optimizing Cross-Flow Tray Performance

Optimizing the performance of a cross-flow tray entails balancing choke, backup and jet flood without losing sight of the mass transfer efficiency.  The flood parameters and the efficiency are influenced by the active area and downcomer layout and, very importantly, the bubbling devices.  The influence of physical properties and phase ratios are also very important.  This multi-dimensional optimization problem requires a large amount of data covering a wide range.  Koch-Glitsch has invested in generating a vast body of data that includes data from a large diameter hydrocarbon pilot plant tower.  This has allowed the optimization of tray performance.  In this paper data will be shown that demonstrates the performance gains that were possible.  This will include data from Koch-Glitsch pilot plants and F.R.I. tests.  Industrial case studies will also be presented.