Hydrodynamic study of different configurations of sieve trays for a dividing wall column by using experimental and CFD methods

During the last decades, process intensification has led to significant developments in chemical process engineering. Divided wall column (DWC) is intensified process equipment for reducing energy consumption and capital costs in distillation operations. In the present work, hydrodynamics of a 0.5 m in diameter sieve tray of DWC with several types of downcomers was studied experimentally and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model was developed to predict the hydrodynamics of trays. Simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental data in terms of pressure drop and prediction of turbulence of the vapor-liquid mixture on the tray. Further, the pressure drop values were compared with the empirical correlations. Moreover, it was found that downcomer design plays a key role in the tray hydrodynamics.