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Experimental Study of Liquid Flow Maldistribution in Sulzer 500X Structured Packing and Raschig Super-Ring Random Packing

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Journal of Engineering Thermophysics Aims and scope

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an experimental study of the formation of large-scale non-uniformity of liquid flow on a RSR metal random packing of 0.47 m in diameter and a Sulzer 500X structured packing of 0.6 m in diameter. The experiments on the RSR packing were carried out with water without vapor flow for the superficial velocity of the liquid varying as \(3\cdot 10^{-3}< L_{0}<12\cdot 10^{-3}\) m/s. The experiments on the Sulzer 500X structured packing were conducted in a distillation column with separation of R114/R21 freon mixture under total reflux conditions. The superficial velocity of the liquid varied in the range \(3.5 \cdot 10^{-3}< L_{0}<6.7\cdot 10^{-3}\) m/s; the vapor load varied in the range 1.3 < F-factor < 2 Pa0.5. It is shown that the amount of liquid retained on the column wall at the outlet from the Sulzer 500X packing practically does not change in the investigated range of operating parameters. For the superficial velocity of the liquid varying as \(3.5\cdot 10^{-3}< L_{0}<5\cdot 10^{-3}\) m/s, the liquid maldistribution factor for the Sulzer 500X packing is three times less than that for the RSR random packing. The resulting experimental data will help to construct and verify models for calculating the efficiency of separation of mixtures on packings in industrial column apparatus with quantitative allowance for the effect of the scale factor, which is associated with large-scale non-uniformity of local flow parameters.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kutateladze Institute of Thermophysics, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia

    A. N. Pavlenko, V. E. Zhukov & E. Yu. Sukhorukova

  2. Institute of Chemical Engineering, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria

    D. B. Dzhonova-Atanasova & K. V. Stefanova

Authors
  1. A. N. Pavlenko
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  2. V. E. Zhukov
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  3. E. Yu. Sukhorukova
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  4. D. B. Dzhonova-Atanasova
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  5. K. V. Stefanova
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Correspondence to A. N. Pavlenko.

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Pavlenko, A.N., Zhukov, V.E., Sukhorukova, E.Y. et al. Experimental Study of Liquid Flow Maldistribution in Sulzer 500X Structured Packing and Raschig Super-Ring Random Packing. J. Engin. Thermophys. 30, 171–183 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1810232821020016

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1810232821020016

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