Under what circumstances are packings chosen over trays?
A general statement might be made that packings are chosen at either of the two ends of the design spectrum: a) very small towers (less than 24″ diameter), b) low pressure drop limits and c) services where plastic or aluminum materials would be beneficial. Packings are highly desirable in small towers due to mechanical limitations imposed due to size. In some tower sizes, trays other than cartridge style are impractical, if not impossible, to install. Packings are desirable in high liquid and vapor situations where pressure drop is a primary consideration. An excellent example is the vacuum crude tower, where pressure drop is held to a few mm Hg over the entire tower. Applications where random packings are generally unsuitable are large diameter towers with low liquid and high vapor rates, the primary limitation being the liquid distributor and not the packing itself. An example would be a glycol contactor. Other undesirable cases would be operations that require high turndown. This is
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- Under what circumstances are packings chosen over trays?
