CFD study of the effect of vapor directional valve on the sieve tray performance

In this paper, A 3D model in the Eulerian- Eulerian framework for the prediction of the two phase tray hydrodynamic with ANSYS CFX software was used. CFD of the sieve tray was validated with experimental data. Results showed good agreement between an experimental simulation and CFD simulation. Then, to improve sieve tray performance and eliminate stagnant point on the tray, the different arrangement of the vapor directional valve was implemented. The best directional valve arrangement was 8 number valves on the sieve tray. The results show that the ratio of the vapor directional valve open area to the total hole area is an important parameter in the tray design. This dimensionless parameter for the 8 number arrangement is 14.31%. Therefore, this improved sieve tray with the optimum number directional valve can be used in the debottlenecking and future design of sieve trays.