CORRELATION OF FRACTIONATION TRAY PERFORMANCE VIA A CROSS-FLOW BOUNDARY-LAYER MODEL

The nonequilibrium tray model proposed by Young and Stewart (1990) is used to correlate published fractionation data from sieve tray columns 0.45 m to 1.2 m in diameter. The model contains a dimensionless coefficient a00 to describe the interphase heat and mass transfer, and a Peclet number Pe to describe the lateral mixing of the liquid on the tray. The coefficient a00 is investigated as a function of tray geometry and hydrodynamic variables, using an error-in-variables extension of a multiresponse parameter estimation algorithm. Data from several sources are well correlated by a simple dimensionless relation for a00, with Pe predicted from the results of Bennett and associates (1983, 1991).