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Properly Employ
O verhead Condensers
for Vacuum Columns
David Greene In a vacuum distillation system, the
Consultant
George J. Vago
condenser is an important determinant
Consultant of overall performance. Follow these
guidelines for specifying, selecting and
designing overhead vacuum condensers.
vacuum 10010 torr; and high vacuum 101 torr. The It is obviously desirable to minimize in-leakage by
costs of producing vacuum increase exponentially with the eliminating unnecessary fittings and avoiding situations
level of vacuum. that permit the ingress of noncondensables. To the extent
Once the level of vacuum is established by evaluat- possible, the system should be welded and the distance
ing the process requirements against cost and perfor- from the process source through the condenser to the vac-
mance, the system can be specified. The first decision is uum system minimized.
how to allocate the pressure drop between the process
user and the vacuum system and how to split this pres- Temperature
sure drop between the piping and condenser. A rule-of- A vent condenser will further reduce the load on the
thumb is to allocate about 10% of the absolute pressure vacuum system, recover process material and reduce efflu-
to the pressure drop in the piping and condenser. Be- ent-treatment requirements. It may be desirable to add re-
cause condensation increases with pressure, the pres- frigeration to maximize recovery.
sure loss between the process equipment and condenser At the same time, the design should be based on a rea-
should be minimized. In the case of medium- and high- sonable coolant temperature and a realistic temperature
vacuum systems, the preferred arrangement is to inte- approach. The cost of designing for the worst-case cooling
grally connect the process equipment and condenser. water temperature and a close approach will be very high
Eliminating the piping and mounting the condenser di- for a vacuum condenser.
rectly on the column minimizes the pressure drop be- Also, use caution when dealing with materials with
tween the column and condenser. high freezing points to avoid the possibility of freezing. A
If the condenser is mounted away from the column, the recirculating tempered-cooling loop may be provided to
piping should be generously sized, fittings minimized and obtain a close approach while maintaining the process
valves avoided. Valves are expensive in large-bore piping temperature above the freezing point.
and are sources of both in-leakage and pressure drop.
TEMA data sheet
Noncondensables After the heat duty has been calculated, a condensing
Noncondensables can be introduced through in-leakage, curve, as illustrated in Figure 1, is prepared. This curve
they may be entrained or dissolved in the process fluid, or will be used to calculate a weighted mean temperature dif-
they may be produced in the distillation column by crack- ference to most accurately reflect the temperature differ-
ing of heavier components. During start-up, additional ence throughout the heat exchanger.
noncondensables in the form of contaminants, such as oil A data sheet, such as provided in the Tubular Exchanger
or grease, may be present in the system. Manufacturers Association (TEMA) standards (3), is used to
Two methods are available to estimate in-leakage. A transmit pertinent fluid properties and mechanical preferences
crude technique developed by the Heat Exchange Institute from the process engineer to the heat transfer specialist.
(HEI) (1) provides an estimate of in-leakage as a function of
absolute pressure and system volume for tight systems. Al-
though quick and simple, there seems to be a general con- 240.0
propriate allowance for the density of the condensate Selecting the design
and any tendency to foam. For a fluid density of 50 The selection of the vacuum condenser type is mainly a
lbs/ft3 and a tendency to foam, 45 ft is an appropriate function of the operating pressure and the allowable pres-
height. The seal piping should be run vertically. If this sure drop. The size of the unit is then determined by the
is not possible, one or two 45-deg sections may be per- specified vapor mass flowrate and operating pressure.
mitted, but this should be considered as a last-resort Condensers operating at low vacuum (100760 mm Hg)
approach. Horizontal runs should never be used, as are the easiest to design; difficulty increases exponentially as
they might allow gas bubbles to form and agglomerate the vacuum level increases. Experience shows that the most
into vapor pockets, which would impair draining and critical design factor for vacuum condensers is the proper al-
might cause backup to the condenser. Remember also location of pressure drop throughout the unit. Since the
that condensate at sub-ambient temperature may warm largest losses occur at the inlet nozzle before condensation
up in the seal leg or hotwell and flash. To avoid this, it starts, this region must be carefully analyzed. As the size of
may be necessary to insulate the pipe. the condenser increases, the supporting structure becomes
In addition, the hotwell seal needs to have sufficient another important cost factor in optimization of the design.
volume to fill the pipe to avoid breaking vacuum if the The following criteria must be factored into the selec-
system is shut down. A 12-in. seal between the pipe outlet tion of a shell-and-tube condenser:
and hotwell overflow is suggested to accommodate minor Condensation inside vs. outside of tubes. Condensation
level upsets. inside tubes is not appropriate for vacuum overhead con-
Condensate collection and reflux distribution. Distri- densers because of the high tubeside pressure drop and the
bution of reflux is a critical factor in the operation of a difficulty in piping and supporting a vertically mounted
vacuum column because of the liquid loading. It is also unit. Therefore, condensation on the outside of the tubes is
important to avoid entrainment of the returning reflux the best choice.
into the exiting vapor stream. The most common reflux Horizontal vs. vertical shell orientation. Vertical orien-
arrangement is to remove part of the condensate as tation for outside-tube condensation is justified for tube
product (distillate) and return the remainder as reflux. bundles mounted inside the column or possibly inside a re-
Some columns return all of the liquid to the column and ceiving tank. However, it is more difficult to meet the low
remove the product somewhat below the condenser pressure-drop objectives when compared to horizontal de-
from a specially designed drawoff stage. In either case, signs because it is not possible to split the flow in a verti-
the condensate must first be collected in a central loca- cal arrangement. In addition, the use of a U-tube bundle
tion for further distribution. may not be allowed, since the coolant is not drainable and
The most common way to collect condensate for a di- a more costly floating head would have to be provided.
rectly mounted condenser is to provide a welded annular The optimal design can be achieved in a horizontal shell.
trough around the inlet nozzle. Liquid can be withdrawn Shellside flow arrangements. Dividing the flow crossing
from this trough via either an overflow weir or a pipe to the tube bank can minimize pressure drop in a horizontal
direct the flow to the column below or to a product line. unit. Using divided shell flow and double segmental baf-
Using an internal splitter is simple, but the reflux fles can achieve this very effectively. Further decrease in
flowrate cannot be directly measured. At one time, it was pressure drop can be achieved by increasing the tube lay-
common to withdraw the entire condensate and measure out pitch, which will open up the cross-flow area. Typical-
the reflux and product streams from the pumped dis- ly, the vapor enters at the bottom in the center of the shell,
charge. With todays control systems, the reflux can be the flow is divided inside the tubeless shell bottom, and
determined by performing a heat balance on the con- noncondensables exit at the top in the center. The inlet
denser using coolant temperatures and flows to calculate nozzle is specially designed for collecting the condensate.
the total condensate and subtracting the distillate flow The applied LMTD correction factor is the same as in a
measurement, thereby permitting the use of the simpler conventional divided-flow unit.
internal splitter for reflux control. Mechanical design and materials of construction. The
Special consideration must be given to the reflux dis- minimum piping pressure drop is achieved by eliminat-
tributor in the column. As vacuum level increases, the ing the piping between the column and condenser.
column cross-section gets larger, but the reflux volume Mounting the condenser at the top of the column does
remains the same and may even decrease. In order to present some mechanical and maintenance difficulties
provide good distribution for wetting packing or ensur- and may require a booster pump to supply coolant to tall
ing uniform flow across trays, a specially designed dis- columns, but there is a significant process advantage in
tributor is normally used. These distributors become minimizing pressure drop.
quite sophisticated if turndown is required, and it is The unit must be self-supporting from the vapor inlet
most important that the distributor be level to ensure nozzle and designed to prevent in-leakage of the ambient
uniform flow across the column. air. This is important in order to avoid overloading the vac-
Solving for Ti and introducing the simplifying parame- The single-phase shellside pressure drops are calculated
ter Z = dQv/dQ yields: by correlations as defined by Kern (7). The two-phase
pressure drop across the bundle is established by applying
dQ U (Tv Tw ) the Lockhart-Martinelli method (8), where the pressure
= (3)
dA (1 + UZ hv ) drop is calculated for a single phase (all liquid flow) and
then corrected by a two-phase flow multiplier, shown
graphically as a function of the Lockhart-Martinelli/Nel-
The overall heat-transfer resistance is: son parameter Xtt in the form:
1 1 D 1 L2 = f(Xtt) (10)
= + R fo + Rm + R fi + o ( 4)
U hc Di hw
The local Lockhart-Martinelli parameter is defined as:
Integrating Eq. 3 reveals that the required heat-transfer 0.5 0.1
1 x
0.9
L L
Xtt =
surface area will be:
x (11)
v V
A=
Q
(1 + UZ hv ) dQ (5)
The total two-phase pressure drop is then:
U (Tv Tw )
0 (
P2 = PL 2L n n
) (12)
The shellside vapor-phase convective heat-transfer co- Example: Application of computer programs
efficient, hv, is calculated using the Tinker type stream- Vacuum condensers for one installation were sized by
analysis method, as described by Hewitt, et al. (4). applying a combination of manual and computer calcula-
The condensing liquid-film heat-transfer coefficient is tions with full recognition of cost optimization.
established by the correlations for single vapor condensa- The TEMA (3) designation of the condenser was type
tion as given by McAdams (6) for two regions of flow. BJM, meaning divided-flow, fixed tubesheets, and bonnet
Gravity-controlled condensation occurs at ReL < 2,100, heads with the condensing-vapor inlet nozzles located on
and the heat-transfer coefficient in this region is: the top of the shell. This case was a special design in which
0.25
the flow arrangement was reversed and one vapor inlet noz-
k 3 2 g zle was located at the bottom to also catch returning con-
hc = 0.725 L L (6 ) densate. The full flow was returned to the column as reflux
N L DT
via drain holes at the shells bottom and a half-pipe drain.
The detailed design is shown in the setting plan in Figure 2.
For ReL > 2,100, the heat-transfer coefficient becomes For the thermal design, the HTRI condenser computer
shear-controlled and can be established from the graphical program was used. This program follows, in principle, the
interpretation given by McAdams (6), where the heat- calculation methods outlined here, but with more exact and
transfer parameter is plotted as a function of ReL: improved correlations. Since the program is not completely
adaptable to the special features of this design, some modi-
0.33 fications were made to satisfy the standard input:
hc 3 2 = f ( ReL ) (7) 1. The HTRI designation of BJ21M was specified, de-
kL L g noting two inlet nozzles and one outlet nozzle. Therefore,
the single inlet had to be split into two nozzles with an
equivalent mass-flow velocity. The effect on heat transfer
4Wc of the upward flow at the inlet section with the liquid flow-
ReL = (8)
NL L ing down was neglected and checked for flooding only.
2. The shell size was specified as the equivalent diame-
ter of the real shellside flow area, which corresponds to the
Pressure drop calculations full shell area minus the segmental-inlet-flow area.
The pressure drop through the condenser is typically The pressure drop determined by the computer program
calculated from the inlet to the outlet nozzle of the shell, was modified by manual calculations to account for all
and it consists of following components: contributing components, in accordance with Eq. 9. The
shell size was also established by manual calculations so
P = Pinlet + P90-deg-turn + Pdome that the diameter would agree with the bundle tube count
+ Pentrance + P2 + Poutlet (9) and more accurately simulate the shellside flow areas.
40
Table. Pressure drop distribution in a typical condenser.
30
Inlet nozzle + impingement on
the dome plate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35%
20
DAVID GREENE (35 Sycamore Way, Warren NJ 07059; Phone: (908) Literature Cited
7578183; E-mail: davidg14@optonline.net) was process director for Aker
1. Heat Exchange Institute, Standards for Steam Jet Vacuum
Kvaerner Pharmaceuticals when this article was written. He had been Systems, 4th ed., HEI, Cleveland, OH (1988).
with Kvaerner for 25 years and was responsible for the process design
2. Peress, J., Estimate Emissions from Vacuum Operations,
of biotechnology facilities for the past 20 years, including a wide Chem. Eng. Progress, 98 (5), pp. 4042 (May 2002).
variety of industrial microbial and mammalian-cell-culture facilities for
3. Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association, Standards
clients in the U.S. and Europe. He holds a BSChE from the Univ. of
of the Tubular Exchanger Manufacturers Association, 8th ed.,
Rhode Island and an MBA from Northeastern Univ. He is a registered TEMA, Tarrytown, NY (1999).
Professional Engineer in Massachusetts and New Jersey and is a
4. Hewitt, G. F., et. al., Process Heat Transfer, Begell House
member of AIChE. Publishers, New York, NY (1994).
5. Bell, K. G., and M. A. Ghaly, An Approximate Generalized
GEORGE J. VAGO (45 Fairway Green, Fairfield, CT 06432; Phone: (203) 367-
Method for Multicomponent/Partial Condensers, AIChE
3933; E-mail: htegv@optonline.net) is a consultant in heat-transfer Symposium Series, No. 131, Vol. 69, pp. 7279 (1973).
equipment design for the chemical process industries and has over 35
6. McAdams, W. H., Heat Transmission, McGraw Hill, New
years of experience in the field of heat transfer. He held the position of York, NY (1954).
manager of heat transfer with Kvaerner E&C for 18 years. His experience
7. Kern, D. Q., Process Heat Transfer, McGraw Hill, New
stretches into the design of various special types of heat exchangers for
York, NY (1950).
chemical and power plant applications. He holds an MS in mechanical
engineering from the Technical Univ. in Prague and is a life member of
8. Lockhart, R. W., and R. C. Martinelli, Proposed Correla-
tion of Data for Isothermal Two-phase, Two-component Flow
ASME, where he was active on the Heat Transfer Equipment Committee. in Pipes, Chem. Eng. Progress, 45 (1), pp. 3948 (Jan. 1949).