43Case Study 8: Horizontal Tank Vapor–Liquid Separator
43.1 Description and Analysis
The objective is to design a horizontal cylindrical tank to disengage liquid and vapor (see Figure 43.1). Two‐phase flow enters the top of the tank on one side, the liquid drops out to the lower portion of the tank, and the vapor to the upper portion. They exit at the other end of the tank, separately. Liquid at the bottom. Vapor at the top. As the vapor flows from entrance to exit, mist droplets gravity‐fall from the vapor to the liquid. The higher the vertical dimension of the head space, or the higher the vapor flow rate, the longer the tank must be for droplets to have time to fall out of the vapor. This places a constraint relating tank length to diameter. There are two additional constraints: the vapor flow rate must be small enough so that it does not make waves on the liquid surface and re‐entrain droplets. And the liquid holdup must provide a reservoir to provide continuity of downstream flow rate in spite of inflow pulses. The process tank designer can choose tank aspect ratio (l/d) and liquid level in the tank (f, as a fraction of diameter), and then lower‐cost tank diameter will be a consequence of compliance to the limiting constraint.
Figure 43.1 Illustration of a vapor–liquid separator, a horizontal right circular tank.
The objective is to minimize the capital cost of the tank: ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
