Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

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Chemical Engineering Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ces

Upward vapour ows in falling lm evaporators and implications

for distributor design
Ken R. Morison n, Steven R. Broome 1
Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand

H I G H L I G H T S

Vapour ows in multi-pass falling lm evaporators were modelled.

Vapour in some passes owed upwards instead of downwards.
Signicant interaction between vapour and liquid ows is predicted.
Increased fouling is a possible outcome.
The incorporation of vapour tubes in distributor plates eliminated the problem.

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 6 January 2014
Received in revised form
8 April 2014
Accepted 12 April 2014
Available online 21 April 2014

Falling-lm evaporators, which are used for concentrating dairy liquids and juice, often include multipass bodies (calandrias). The ow of vapours through multi-pass bodies was modelled and simulated.
Equations were developed to describe the pressure drop of vapour as the ow rate changes with
evaporation. It was shown that, even though all the vapour leaves at the base of the evaporator, some of
the vapour ow upwards in some tubes and downwards in other tubes. The vapour velocities across the
tube sheet of a ve-pass evaporator concentrating milk from 16% solids to 39% solids were simulated to
be up to 25 m s  1. The vapour ow that resulted was likely to cause signicant deection of incoming
liquid jets with the potential increase fouling. Alternative designs were evaluated.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Falling-lm evaporator
Distributor
Vapour ow
Pressure drop

1. Introduction
Falling lm evaporators are commonly used in the food
industry for the concentration of liquids such as milk, whey, sugar
and juice (Morison and Hartel, 2007). In nearly all such evaporators, heated liquid enters at the top of the evaporator body
(calandria) and ows down the inside of many vertical tubes
which are externally heated by steam (water vapour). Water is
evaporated from the liquid as it passes down, thus concentrating
the solids content of the liquid. The vapour and concentrated
liquid are separated at the bottom of the tubes. Signicant energy
savings can be made by having several stages in series whereby
the vapour produced by one stage is used to heat a subsequent
stage which operates at a lower temperature and pressure. Each of
these stages with a different pressure is termed an effect, and
n

Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ken.morison@canterbury.ac.nz (K.R. Morison),
sbroome@transeldworley.co.nz (S.R. Broome).
1
Present address: WorleyParsons, 25 Gill Street, New Plymouth, New Zealand.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ces.2014.04.015
0009-2509/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

normally each effect is contained within one calandria. The liquid

is pumped from one effect to the next and hence can be
concentrated up to the desired concentration.
The overall optimisation of a falling lm evaporator system
including preheating and condensers was considered by Sharma
et al. (2012), but details of internal ows are seldom considered in
research literature.
An essential feature of falling lm evaporators to avoid fouling
is that the tubes must remain completely wetted at all times
(Paramalingam et al., 2000; Morison, et al., 2006). To achieve good
wetting it is often useful to have multiple passes within one effect
(Morison and Hartel, 2007) as shown in Fig. 1. In this gure, the
feed ows into one set of tubes, referred to as the rst pass, and is
then pumped to the top to ow through the separate set of tubes
comprising the second pass. These two passes operate at the same
pressure, so together they form the rst effect of the evaporator.
The second effect contains ve passes. Industrial brochures (GEA,
2000, 2003) show calandria with up to six passes.
It is commonly assumed, but seldom stated, that both liquid
and vapour always ow down the tubes. Adib and Vasseur (2008)

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

refer to the downcoming stream of vapour. However, the authors

have observed in one industrial evaporator that there appeared to
be upward ow of vapour.
At the top of the calandria there is a distributor to ensure even
ow of the liquid into the tubes. Liquid is held at a depth of at least
3 cm and ows through holes falling onto the horizontal tube
sheet and then owing into the tubes. There will be also some ow
of vapour, some of which comes from ashing from the hot feed.
There are two design approaches to allow the ow of vapour. The
design in Fig. 2a is shown by Billet (1989) and Westergaard (2004)
and requires any excess vapours to pass around the outer edge of
the distributor tray. The alternative in Fig. 2b is shown by Bouman
et al. (1988) and APV (1999) and incorporates vapour tubes which
allow excess vapour to pass vertically through the distributor.
This paper develops a model and presents simulation results of
vapour ow rates and pressure drops in different parts of a falling
lm evaporator calandria with the aim of supporting the authors
observation of upward vapour ow in one evaporator. From the
results, conclusions are made about different designs that can be
used to avoid potential problems.

2. Model
It is useful to start with an outline of the cause for upward
vapour ows. In some multi-pass evaporators the top part of all
the passes is at the same pressure, and all the passes have the
same pressure at the base, so the pressure drop down the tubes is
_ evap ) produced in
the same for all passes. The ow rate of vapour (m
each tube is directly related to the heat transfer coefcient, U, (Eq.
Vapour

Feed

1) which decreases as the solids content gets higher. The other

variables in Eq. (1) (heat transfer area, A, effective temperature
difference, T, and latent heat of evaporation, hv ) are the same,
or change only a little, for all tubes.
_ evap
m

UA T
hv

The pressure drop down the tubes is related to the ow rate of

vapour down the tubes. In the rst pass the solids content is lower
so more vapour is produced than in subsequent passes, and hence
if all of it was to ow downwards the pressure drop would be
higher than in subsequent passes. Therefore some of the vapour in
the top of the tubes can ow upwards.

2.1. Vapour ow model

A steady state distributed model was set up with variables
dependent on position down the length of the evaporator tubes.
Feed enters the calandria from the process feed or from a previous
evaporation effect at a solids mass fraction wf eed and mass ow
_ f eed . When liquid was transferred from one pass to
rate per tube, m
another, the ows were adjusted according to the number of tubes
in each pass. The ow was assumed to be equally distributed
among all the tubes in each pass. The heat transfer is dened in
the standard way.
The effective temperature difference is made up of terms for
the temperature difference of vapour at the base of the evaporator,
the boiling point elevation (T b , given later) which varies with
concentration, and a correction for the change in saturated
temperature due to change in pressure up the tubes (T P ):
T T base T b T P

Fan

As it passes down an evaporator tube the mass ow rates of

liquid solution (s) and vapour (v) change as follows:.
_s
_v
dm
dm
U T D


hv
dx
dx

Here x is distance down the tube, D is the inside diameter of the

tube, and hv is the heat of evaporation under the local conditions.
Hence the mass fraction of solids, w, can be determined locally
from Eq. (3):
Concentrate
Fig. 1. A two-effect falling lm evaporator with two passes in the rst effect and
ve passes in the second effect. For clarity some pumps are not shown in the
second effect.

Vapour

Liquid

_ f eed
wf eed m
_s
m

The overall heat transfer coefcient can be determined from the

external (e) and internal (i) lm heat transfer coefcients, their
respective areas, the wall thickness t and the thermal conductivity

Vapour
Liquid

Fig. 2. Cross-section of two possible distributor designs: a) without vapour tubes and b) with vapour tubes.

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

of the wall, k:
1
A
t 1
i
U he Ae k hi

The local external heat transfer coefcient for condensing vapour

under gravity ow is given by McNaught and Butterworth (1998):
"
#1=3
 1=3 l l v g
; Rel o 30
6
he 1:1kl Rel
2l
"
he 0:756kl Rel 0:22

l l  v g
2l
"

he

0:00402kl Re0:4
l

Pr 0:65
l

#1=3
;

l l  v g
2l

Rel 4 30

#1=3
;

Rel 4 4658Pr l 1:05

In these equations k is liquid thermal conductivity, is density, is

viscosity, Pr is the Prandtl number, and the liquid lm Reynolds
number is used based on the wetting rate and outside diameter.
Subscript l refers to liquid.
Rel

4
l

The wetting rate is dened as

_l
m
D

10

It was found that the Reynolds number remained low enough that
Eq. (8) was never used.
The stainless steel tubes typically have an outside diameter of
50.8 mm (2 in.), a wall thickness of 1 mm and a thermal conductivity of 17 W m  2 K  1. The local internal lm heat transfer
coefcient was chosen based on indicative values for overall heat
transfer coefcients given in Morison and Hartel (2007) to be
hi 6200  11400w

11

When combined with the other terms, the overall heat transfer coefcient ranged from 370 W m  2 K  1 at 50% solids to
2750 W m  2 K  1 for water.
Liquid typically enters each effect at a temperature higher than
that of the effect. Some amount of liquid ashes to vapour
according to Eq. (9):
_ f lash
m

_ f eed T f eed  T evap C pf eed

m
hv

12

The net ow of vapour down each tube must equal the rate of
ashed vapour. This can be expressed as

i 1;npass

_ v;i m
_ f lash
ni m

13

_ v;i is the mass ow

where ni is the number tubes in effect i, and m
of vapour entering each tube in pass i.
The pressure drop for vapour in the tubes is based on the
homogenous ow model (e.g., Hewitt and Hall-Taylor, 1970) which
has three terms: static head (sh), acceleration or momentum (a)
and friction (f). In this case it will be assumed that water vapour
ows within an annulus of liquid and that the quality of the
vapour is 1.0, i.e., there are no entrained liquid droplets. The rate of
change of pressure (P) with distance down the tube (x) is given by
 
   
dP
dP
dP
dP

14
dx
dx sh
dx a
dx f


dP
dx


 v g
sh

15

The friction term is typically given in terms of the downwards

mass ux, G:
 
dP
2f jGjGvv

16

dx f
D
where f is the friction factor and vv is the specic volume of the
vapour. The absolute value of mass ux is used to allow for
reverse ows.
Hajiloo et al. (2001) reviewed friction factors for such ows but
their gas and liquid ow rates were mostly higher than those
expected in an evaporator. Their data were inspected and extrapolated to the conditions in the tubes, but in all cases the
experimental friction factors were less than or very close to the
friction factor for a smooth tube. Wallis (1969) collected a range of
annular lm ow results for horizontal and vertical lms and
obtained an equation for friction factor:



f 0:005 1 300
17
D
From this work they concluded that the equivalent pipe roughness
was four times the lm thickness (for water/air). However for
more viscous liquids the lm is thicker and the friction predicted
by Eq. (17) becomes unreasonably high. Hence Haalands equation
for friction factors (Haaland, 1983) was applied using a uniform
roughness () of 1.1 mm corresponding to the waves formed in a
water/air system. Subsequent sensitivity analysis showed that the
vapour velocities were not at all sensitive to the choice of roughness:


 2
1:11 6:9
f 1=  3:6log 10

3:7D
Re

18

The acceleration term can be derived from a momentum

balance (Hewitt and Hall-Taylor, 1970) to give
 
_ v u
dP
1 dm
19

dx a
A dx
In this equation the mass ow rate is always positive but the
velocity (u) can be negative. Both the mass ow rate and the
velocity can be dened in terms of mass ux, G, and specic
volume, vv , giving
 
 
  

  dG
dP
d  
dvv
 GGvv  signG 2Gvv G2
20
dx a
dx
dx
dx
The last term can be written as
dvv dvv dP

dx
dP dx

21

The vapour mass ux, G, changes with evaporation down the tube:
_v
dG 1 dm

dx A dx

22

and with (1)

dG
4 UD T
4U T

dx D2 hv
D hv
Hence
 
  

  4UT
dP
dvv dP
 signG 2Gvv
G2
dx a
Dhv
dP dx
Combining all the terms
 
!
  4UT
dP
g
dvv dP 2f G2 vv
 
  signG 2Gvv

G2
  Dhv
dx
vv
dP dx
D

23

24

25

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18



dP
dvv
g
1 signGG2
  2signG
dx
vv
dP

 
!
  4UT f G2 v
 
v

Gvv
  Dhv
D

Table 1
Parameters used in the simulation.

26
dP  g=vv  2signGjGjvv 4UT=Dhv f G2 vv =D

dx
1 signGG2 dvv =dP

27

The denominator was found to be insignicantly different

from 1.0.
2.2. Physical properties
Temperature dependent values for water vapour and liquid
were obtained from equations tted to standard data. Milk density
was calculated as a function of temperature and solids concentration using an equation given by Pseck (1997):


wf at
1
wNFS
wwater

28
1=

2
milk
967  1:3T 1635  2:6T 0:02T
water T
Here wf at ; wNFS and wwater are the mass fraction of fat, non-fatsolids (NFS) and water respectively, and T is temperature in 1C.
The viscosity was calculated using the equations given by
Morison et al. (2013) as follows:
milk waterT exp
i

ai wi

wwater

29

where the sum is over components protein, lactose and fat with
alactose 3:35  0:0238T 1:25  10  4 T 2

30

af at 3:46  0:025T 1:6  10  4 T 2

31

and aprotein 10.9.

The boiling point elevation T b was obtained from the fundamental equation
T b 

RT 2wb ln xwater
hv

32

where T wb is the normal boiling of water in kelvin at the local

pressure, hv is the molar heat of vaporisation and xwater is the
mole fraction of water. A good estimate of mole fraction can be
obtained by considering only water, lactose and minerals. Based on
the freezing point depression data of Chen et al. (1996) the
effective molecular mass of minerals in milk is 0.067 kg mol  1 if
they are considered to exist in an undissociated form. Thus
 w
  w

w
w
water
water
xwater
=
minerals lactose
33
0:01803
0:01803
0:067
0:342
2.3. Parameters
The tubes had a length of 14 m, an outer diameter of 50.8 mm
and a wall thickness of 1 mm. The tubes were assumed to be
arranged on the tube sheet (the horizontal sheet into which all the
tubes are welded) with a triangular pitch of 60 mm giving a
minimum distance between them of 11.2 mm (see Fig. 2). The
calandria diameter was set at 2.2 m was lled with tubes. Two
different calandrias were considered corresponding to those in
Fig. 1; the rst had two passes suitable as a rst effect in a skim
milk evaporator with a feed of about 9% total solids and the other
had ve passes suitable as a second effect with a feed concentration of about 16% total solids. After allowing for dividing sections
between passes, the two-pass calandria was found to have 1107
tubes and the ve-pass calandria had 1044 tubes. The split of the
number of tubes in each effect was determined to achieve an inlet
liquid wetting rate of 0.18 kg m  1 s  1 at 9% solids increasingly
linearly to 0.25 kg m  1 s  1 at 40% solids. It is acknowledged that

Parameter

Effect 1

Effect 2

Feed solids (%)

Passes
Feed wetting rate (kg m  1 s  1)
Pass 1 tubes
Pass 2 tubes
Pass 3 tubes
Pass 4 tubes
Pass 5 tubes
Evaporating temperature (1C)
Temperature difference (1C)
Feed temperature (1C)

9.0
2
0.18
650
457

16.1
5
0.20
327
247
190
153
127
66
3.5
70

70
3.5
75

the resulting number of tubes in each pass was not always the best
for physical construction. Other parameters are given in Table 1.

2.4. Distributor
When the distributor shown in Fig. 2a is used, the vapour ows
to the circumference of the distributor plate. The arc length (at the
circumference) available for ow in each pass was assumed to be
in direct proportion to the number of tubes, but it is acknowledged
that this does not need to be so. The distributor was assumed to be
40 mm above the tube plate. The design in Fig. 2b allows vapour to
pass directly from evaporator tubes into corresponding vapour
tubes (or vice versa) so vapour does not need to ow horizontally.
Fig. 3a shows the top view of a small tube sheet and Fig. 3b
shows a photo of a similar system. For the tube diameters and
pitch given above, the minimum distance between the centre of a
distributor hole and the inner edge of an evaporator tube is
10.2 mm. Typically distributor holes and jets are 68 mm in
diameter so the distance between the outer edge of the jet and
in tube is 67 mm.
With the distributor design shown in Fig. 2a there is possibility
of interaction between the falling liquid jet and the vapour as
shown for an individual jet in Fig. 4. If the deection of the falling
jet is high enough, the distribution of liquid into the tubes and the
subsequent wetting of the tubes will be signicantly affected. The
horizontal vapour velocity is assumed to be the greatest after the
outer tubes near the circumference of the distributor.
By considering drag over a cylinder it can be shown that the
horizontal liquid velocity ul;y of a piece of falling uid is given by
dul;y 2C d v u2v

dt
l D

34

For vapour velocities in the range 220 m s  1 the Reynolds

number ranges from about 150 to 2000 depending on the
evaporator temperature. From Lapple and Shepherd (1940) the
drag coefcient for ow across a cylinder is very close to 1.0 in
this range.
The vertical velocity is dependent on the height of liquid above
the hole, discharge coefcient, C h , and gravity. Discharge coefcients for this situation are dependent on the liquid height, h, and
are given by Morison et al. (2006). Possible thinning of the jet as it
owed was not considered as follows:
ul;x C h

p
2gh gt

35

Eqs. (34) and (35) can be used to nd the trajectory of an ideal jet
of falling liquid.

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

Fig. 3. a) A scale top view of 7 evaporator tubes (large circles) and position of vertical jets from the distributor (small circles). b) Vertical jets of sucrose solution falling from a
distributor onto a model tube sheet.

Downward vapour velocity, m/s

-2.5

Liquid

Vapour

0.0
2.5
5.0
7.5
10.0
12.5
15.0
17.5
20.0

Fig. 4. Side view of a distorted jet of liquid falling from a distributor plate onto a
tube sheet with a cross ow of vapour.

3
Pass number

Fig. 6. Vapour velocity at the top and base of a single tube in each of ve passes in
Effect 2. The grey area indicates the amount of evaporation in each pass. The black
areas represent ow from passes 1 and 2.

ow rate into the top of each pass was guessed. The pressure was
then calculated from the base of the tubes to the top also using
Modied Euler's method (in the style of Holland and Bragg, 1995).
Excel Solver was then used to set all the pressures at the top of the
passes equal while requiring the total of the vapour ows into the
passes to equal the amount of vapour ashed.

-0.25

Downward vapour flow rate, kg/s

0.00
0.25
0.50
0.75
1.00
1.25

3. Results

1.50
1.75
2.00
2.25

Pass number
Fig. 5. Simulated total vapour ow rates at the top and base of each of ve passes
in Effect 2. The y-axis is inverted to show the physical direction of ow. The grey
area indicates the amount of evaporation in each pass. The black areas represent
ow from passes 1 and 2.

2.5. Solution method

The differential equation (1) for either two or ve passes,
together with the supporting equations, was solved using the
modied Eulers method in Microsoft Excel. To do this the vapour

Fig. 5 shows the simulated vapour ow rates in Effect 2

(Table 1) with ve passes. Here it can be seen that there is upward
vapour ow in passes 1 and 2 with downward vapour ow in the
other three passes. In pass 1 the point of zero velocity was about
0.8 m below the top of the tubes. Similar information is shown in
Fig. 6 as velocity at the top and bottom of a single tube in
each pass. The impact of the vapour ows on velocities under a
distributor of the type shown in Fig. 2a (without vapour tubes) is
then determined.
From these results and using the number of tubes and an
approximate arc length for each segment of the distributor
circumference, the (maximum) velocities of the vapour as it ows
under the outer edge of a distributor were determined. The feed
total solids content to the calandria was varied. The feed temperature for Effect 1 was also changed to 80 1C, giving results for 5 1C
and 10 1C ash. The resulting velocities for the two passes in Effect

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

Maximum vapour velocity, m/s

1 are shown in Fig. 7. This shows vapour owing radially inwards

to the tubes (positive values) for the second pass, but outwards
radial ow from the tubes (negative) for the rst pass. The
inuence is the smallest when the feed solids concentration is
the lowest as the heat transfer coefcient in the second pass is not
reduced as much in this case.
The simulated vapour velocities are greater in a ve-pass
calandria as shown in Fig. 8. For a wide range of feed concentrations (wider than is practical) there are vapour velocities of over
20 m s  1 across the tube sheet.
Using the conditions shown in Table 1 the vapour velocity
passing under the distributor plate reached 20.7 m s  1 in pass 5 of
Effect 2. The liquid height in the distributor plate (h) was set to
40 mm and the falling jet deection was calculated (Fig. 9). Under
ideal steady, laminar ow conditions the jet is deected by about
6.5 mm which is enough for it to hit the tube sheet at the edge of
the tube. Ideal distribution into the surrounding tubes, and hence
good wetting of the tubes, is very unlikely under these conditions.
In practice there are many dynamics occurring in the evaporator. Vapour velocities could be higher, while the liquid jet ow rate
could be lower. This would easily lead to the case of the jet owing
directly into a tube with poor wetting as a result.
The simulation results were tested for sensitivity to fouling.
A uniform reduction in heat transfer, say 10%, over all the passes
reduced the vapour velocities. However, if the fouling was more
severe at higher concentrations the vapour velocities increased.
For example, if the Pass 5 of Effect 2 was fouled to reduce heat
transfer by 50%, but all other passes remained the same, the

14.0
12.0
10.0
8.0

Eff 1 Pass 2, 10 C flash

6.0
4.0

Eff 1 Pass 2, 5 C flash

2.0

Eff 1 Pass 1, 5 C flash

0.0
-2.0
-4.0
0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Feed total solids mass fraction

Fig. 7. Maximum vapour velocities between the distributor and the tube sheet in a
two-pass calandria for feed at different solids concentrations and temperatures.
Positive values are for inwards ow towards the tubes.

Maximum distributor velocity, m/s

30.0
25.0

20.0

15.0
10.0

5.0

0
5
10

Vertical distance, mm

15
20
25
30
35
40
-10

-5
0
5
10
15
Horizontal distance, mm

Fig. 9. The calculated deection of a jet of milk falling from a distributor hole onto
a tube sheet with a vapour velocity of 25.6 m s  1. The width of the curve indicates
approximate width of the jet.

velocity of vapour entering Pass 5 increased to almost 40 m s  1.

The deection of the falling jet increased to about 25 mm which
would very likely cause continuing degradation of the performance of this past pass.
When using a distributor with vapour tubes as shown in
Fig. 2b, there are two possible congurations for the separation
of the passes at the top of the effect. The passes can be completely
isolated so they operate at different pressures, or partially isolated
so that vapour can ow from one pass to another, but liquid
cannot. The second case gives the highest vapour ows and it will
be considered here. The tubes must be sized to ensure that the
pressure drop across them is not excessive. The pressure drop was
arbitrarily set at a maximum of 7 50 Pa ( 75 mm water gauge) so
that the liquid level in the distributor tray would not be inuenced
by more than 5 mm.
The vapour tubes need to be about 70 mm high so that in
general liquid does not ow down. Given the low pressure drop,
incompressible uid equations were used. There are a contraction,
and an expansion, with the approximate coefcients Kc 0.5,
Ke 1.0, and the Fanning friction factor f can be obtained from
a chart.
While there are errors due to the shortness of the tube, the
pressure drop can be estimated from


4f l
u2
P K c K e
vapour
36
D
2

0.0

-5.0
-10.0
-15.0

-20.0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

Inlet total solids mass fraction

Fig. 8. Maximum vapour velocities between the distributor and the tube sheet in a
ve-pass calandria for feed at different solids concentrations and temperatures.

For the rst effect, with parameters as given in Table 1 but with
a feed temperature ranging from 70 1C to 80 1C (010 1C ash), the
worst case for pass 1 was an upward vapour ow rate from the
pass of 0.48 m3/s when there was no ash, and for pass 2 the
worst case occurred at 10 1C ash with a downward vapour ow
rate of 1.1 m3/s. To obtain the required pressure drop was found
that in. outside diameter tubing (1.5 mm wall thickness) could
be used for most of the passes; hence this diameter was chosen for
nearly all the passes. In pass 1 of Effect 1 with one vapour tube for

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

Table 2
Velocity and pressure drops for vapour tubes.
Effect Pass Tube
ID
(mm)

Vapour tube
Evap:
Total vapour
vapour tube ow rateb (m3/ velocity
(m s  1)
ratioa
s)

1
1
2
2
2
2
2

3
3
1
3
3
1
11

1
2
1
2
3
4
5

16.1
22.4
16.1
16.1
16.1
16.1
22.4

 0.49c
1.1d
 1.0
 0.27
0.24
00.59
0.83

 11.7c
18.4d
 15.5
 16.4
19.0
19.2
16.6

Pressure
drop (Pa)

21
55
34
38
51
51
38

Ratio of number of evaporator tubes to vapour tubes.

Total for the pass.
With 0 1C ash.
d
With 10 1C ash.
b
c

every three evaporator tubes, the velocity through the vapour

tubes was found to be 11 m s  1 with a pressure drop of 21 Pa. One
set of possible design calculations for all passes in both Effects
1 and 2 are given in Table 2. Here the worst case is the fth pass of
Effect 2 for which one 1 in. vapour tube is tted into the
distributor plate for each evaporator tube.

4. Discussion
The simulation conrmed and quantied the direction of
vapour ows in the evaporator bodies. The results are not
expected to be particularly sensitive to any particular parameters.
While the pressure drop calculation was effective, the extent of
vapour ows is dependent on the relative pressure drops of all the
passes, and not on the absolute pressure drops, so this calculation
is not critical. Linear scaling of the pressure drop has no effect on
the vapour ows. The ow of vapour from one pass to another was
greater in the ve-pass calandria because this one had a large
range of solids content and hence a larger range of evaporation in
different passes. The velocities predicted are high enough to cause
concern that they might disturb liquid ows.
Experimental validation of the model results is desirable, but it
would be very difcult to measure vapour velocities in an industrial
evaporator while maintaining vacuum and without signicant unacceptable modications to the structure. Thus validation relies on the
authors observation of upward ows noted above.
It was difcult to nd minor variations in the design of the
distributor in Fig. 2a that could remove the vapour velocities. The
gap between the distributor plate and the tube sheet was varied
but had very little impact on the jet deection; a greater gap
reduced the vapour velocities but increased the interaction
between the vapour and liquid. Upward vapour ow would be
substantially reduced if the ve-pass effect was split into two
calandrias, but this would add to the capital costs of the evaporator. Alternatively the incorporation of vapour tubes as shown in
Fig. 2b enabled the elimination of high vapour velocities.
This analysis has assumed that all passes have a common pressure
at the top of the calandria. If each pass was sealed at the top, vapour
could not ow from one pass to another and this problem would be
avoided. Such a design is complicated by the need to be able to open
and inspect the top of the calandria, while ensuring that all parts can
be cleaned by normal clean-in-place procedures.
5. Conclusions
The analysis presented here used a model to simulate local heat
transfer, vapour ows and pressure drops in falling-lm evaporators

with multiple passes. When the solids content of the liquid gets
higher, reduced heat transfer causes less evaporation and vapour
ows. The result of this is signicant upward ows of vapour in the
rst pass and increased downward ows in the last pass. The extent of
this phenomenon was found to be greater in a ve-pass effect because
of the wide range in solids concentrations and hence heat transfer
coefcients. For a distributor plate without vapour tubes, the vapour
velocities are sufcient to deect the liquid jets falling from the
distributor plate which is likely to cause deterioration in heat transfer.
When vapour tubes are installed in the distributor plate, there is little
interaction between vapour and liquid ows but the tubes must be
large enough to handle the required vapour ow rates with minimal
pressure drop.
While the designs of industrial evaporators continue to
develop, there are very many installed evaporators with distributors that might cause unnecessary interactions between vapour
and liquid ows. A retrot could be considered for these if there
are performance problems of the type discussed here.

Nomenclature
a
A
Cd
Ch
Cp
D
f
G
h
h
hv
k
K
l
_
m
n
P
Pr
Re
t
t
T
u
U
v
w
x
x

viscosity coefcient
heat transfer area (m2)
drag coefcient
hole discharge coefcient
specic heat capacity (J kg  1K  1)
tube inside diameter (m)
Fanning friction factor
mass ux (kg s  1 m  2)
lm heat transfer coefcient (W m  2K  1)
liquid height (m)
heat of vaporisation (J kg  1)
thermal conductivity (W m  1 K  1)
friction loss coefcient
length (m)
mass ow rate (kg s1)
number of tubes
pressure (Pa)
Prandtl number
Reynolds number
wall thickness (m)
time (s)
temperature (1C or K)
velocity (m s  1)
overall heat transfer coefcient (W m  2 K  1)
specic volume (m3 kg  1)
mass fraction
distance down a tube (m)
mole fraction

Greek letters

lm thickness (m)
roughness (m)
wetting rate (kg m  1 s  1)
viscosity (Pa s)
density (kg m  3)

Subscripts
a
b
e
f

acceleration
boiling point elevation
external
friction

K.R. Morison, S.R. Broome / Chemical Engineering Science 114 (2014) 18

i
l
P
s
sh
v
x, y

internal
liquid
pressure
solids
static head
vapour
direction

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