Chemical Engineering July 2012 - 52

Fractionation Column
Environmental Manager
Design practices committee
W
here do middle boilers go?
If you answered, " Nobody
knows " , then you're wrong.
FRI's Design Practices Committee
(DPC) knows - and they're
willing to share.
The DPC was formed in 1975. It originally
contained just six members. Neil
Yeoman was one of the original members.
He still participates on the DPC
today - as a consultant. Dan Summers,
of Sulzer Chemtech, is presently
the chairman of the DPC. It includes
distillation experts from the world's
biggest users of distillation and absorption.
A DPC meeting attendees roster
reads like a Who's Who in Distillation
list: Jeffrey Bell, Ed Grave, Henry Kister,
Todd Marut, Paul Morehead, Ron
Olsson, Joe Parker, Keith Whitt, Larry
Wilder, Simon Xu, Attilio Praderio,
Brad Fleming and Randy Hollowell.
John Farone and Doug Bouck consult.
Generally, the DPC studies all of the
aspects of distillation that are not (usually)
addressed by the FRI Stillwater
staff. For example, the DPC addresses
scaleup, troubleshooting, gamma scanning,
fouling, instrumentation, smalldiameter
columns, startups, shutdowns,
mist elimination, inspections, middle
boilers and transitions. Transitions include
feeds, flashing feeds, sidedraws,
surge volumes, reboilers and condensers.
Regarding trays, the DPC studies
weirs, blanking, gasketing, fabrication,
assembly and mechanical strength.
Regarding packing, the DPC studies
installation, removal, hold-down grids
and support plates. Very recently, the
DPC completed the largest project in
its history - a compilation of information
regarding packing distributors, including
distributor testing.
Mike Resetarits is the technical director
at Fractionation Research, Inc. (FRI; Stillwater,
Okla.; www.fri.org), a distillation
research consortium. Each month, Mike
shares his irst-hand experience with CE
readers
Ultimately, the DPC work prodAdvertise
in the Classified
Interested?
For more information
on classified advertising,
please contact:
CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING THAT WORKS
uct ends up in Volume 5 of the FRI
Handbooks. In some most important
cases, the work product goes public.
In the July 2007 issue, this magazine
published " Causes and Prevention of
Packing Fires. " A photograph of the
authors, the DPC members, was presented
on p. 42. That article discussed
how hot work inside columns that contain
structured packings can ignite the
packings. Such ignitions have occurred
too often in distillation history. Once
the packing starts burning, suppression
is very difficult. Personally, subsequent
to the issuance of that article, I
have not heard of any new incidents.
More recently, in the January 2012
Chem. Eng. issue, the DPC authored
" Reboiler Circuits for Trayed Columns. "
That article summarized reboiler
options for the bottoms of distillation
columns. Included were the
advantages and disadvantages of vertical
thermosyphon, horizontal thermosyphon,
kettle, forced circulation
and internal reboilers. Many different
piping configurations were compared.
Sometimes a distillation column fails
Diane Hammes
Email: dhammes@accessintel.com
Tel: 713.444.9939 * Fax: 512.213.4855
52 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHE.COM JULY 2012
- or even burns down. Sometimes a
reboiler limits a column's throughput.
There are so many ways whereby distillation
columns can fail, that it is almost
surprising that the vast majority of
them purr incessantly. When a column
fails, many people suffer, including the
engineers, the plant owners and the
public (via shorter local supplies and
higher prices). The FRI Design Practices
Committee members strive to
reduce global column shortfalls. They
are herein commended, especially Neil
Yeoman and Dan Summers.
■
Mike Resetarits
resetarits@fri.org
http://www.fri.org http://WWW.CHE.COM
Chemical Engineering July 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Chemical Engineering July 2012
