Tray Tower & Packed Tower :

Flooding

Kaushal Chand
CM15214
B.E 4th Year
 Tray & Packed towers
A tray tower primarily consist of a vertical cylindrical shell & a set of tower internals that
include:-
1) A tray or a plate on which the Gas-Liquid contact occurs.
2) Arrangements for the liquid to flow from one tray to lower tray through down comer.
3) Inlet & out nozzles for flor rate.

A Packed tower is a continuous contacting equipment widely used for Gas absorption,
distillation & liquid-liquid extraction.
 Phenomenon of flooding
Flooding can happen in two ways
1) Lose in down comer seal
2) Flooding due to inadequate down comer clearance

A)Lose in down comer seal:-

The height of the outlet weir is below the bottom edge of
the down comer in tray below. This Permits the vapours to flow up
the down comer B.
 Flooding due to inadequate space

If the bottom edge of the down comer is too close

to the base of the tray below. It require a higher pressure drop
for the gas to escape in tray 1. Tray 2 the floods. Once tray 2
floods the down comer C back up the flooding & this continues
until the tray 1 is flooded.
Effect of flooding:-
1)When flooding starts on tray all the trays
above that point is flooded & trays below
dried out.
2)An early indication of the flooding in
Distillation column is loss of liquid level in the
bottom of the tower.

Delta (H)= 0.6*(V)^2

Solution for solving flooding problem
1)Move able down comers
2)Pressure variation
3)Temperature variation.
 References
1) WHAT CAUSED TOWER MALFUNCTIONS IN :-THE LAST 50 YEARS?, H. Z.
KISTER ,Fluor, Aliso Viejo, CA, Institution of Chemical Engineers Trans IChemE,
Vol 81, Part A, January 2003
2) BK Dutta, Ch-5, Gas-liquid Operations, Page-172-192, 216-217
3) Robert Treybal, Mass transfer operations, Pg-160-168
4) Norman P. Liebermann, Vol-5, Chapter-1, Page 10-16
5) Rosemount Process management PVT Ltd-(Image Source),
www.rosemount.com
6) Perry, Ph.D., “Handbook of Chemical Processing Equipment”,
Butterworth-Heinemann, Woburn, MA, (2000), p. 163
Thank You!!