Fluid flow in process units Exercise 6

1) Pumps, compressors and piping with Aspen

1. Set up a new simulation, select components air and water. Select Peng-Robinson for
Equation of state
2. Draw a flowsheet with a compressor. Insert feed and outlet streams to it. Add pump, inlet
stream for it. For the outlet, select Pipe module and add two of them. Connect pump outlet to
the first pipe, outlet of the first pipe to the second one, and outlet from the second pipe.
3. Add properties to the feed streams: Feed to compressor is pure air, T=20 oC, pressure 1 bar,
total flow 1000 kg/h. Feed to pump is pure water, T, p and flow are the same as for air feed.
4. Add specifications to the compressor: Polytropic using ASME method, Discharge pressure 3 bar
(note that for compression ratios higher than about 3.5, multistage compressors should be
used)
5. Add specifications to the pump: Discharge pressure 3 bar. Specifications for the pipes: first pipe
10 m vertical (upwards), adiabatic pipe, diameter 5 cm. The second one is 100 m horizontal pipe
with external heating: ambient temperatures 150 oC and heat transfer coefficient 500 W/m2K.
Pipe diameter is also 5 cm.
6. Run simulations

Questions:

1. What is pump and compressor power demands? Why they differ although the flow rate (kg/h)
and pressure increases are the same?
2. Test compressor performance with other assumptions (e.g. isentropic). Compare results.
3. Plot pipe pressure and temperature profiles for both pipes. Discuss about the results.
4. Check which methods are used for pipe flow calculation as defaults.

Elaborate further the exercise by changing the pressure drop calculation methods. Especially pay
attention for two-phase flow (in the lectures the correlation of Lockhart-Martinelli was introduced).
Play with various liquid/vapour ratios by changing the heating. Play also with different flowrates.
What happens?

If time permits continue with the following exercises ->

2) Use the pressure drop correlation from the lectures to ensure self venting flow to disengage
small vapor bubbles in a horizontal side draw from a distillation column i.e you have to have
stratified flow from wich the vapour bubbles can rise. For properties use hexane at its normal
boiling point. Capacity 5 m3/h of hexane liquid with 10% of vapour.
The idea of self venting is that the diameter of the outlet pipe on left hand side in the figure must
be large enough to ensure stratified flow. (Just note that in the right hand situation in the figure
the nozzle and the pipe diameter must ensure annular flow.)

3) Make a small simulator with Excel to design a horizontal settling tank for liquid-liquid
separation to have a first idea on the dimensions of the tank. We assume that this tank works
only with Stokes law. Thus determine using the terminal velocity of the rising droplet how long
the tank should be in horizontal direction. To have an easy geometry you can use rectangular
cross section.

Stokes laws L
D 2 p f g
U
18

Stokes law is valid when Re of the droplet is under 1, check it

U terminal velocity, m/s

g acceleration due to gravity

p 800 kg/m3, light phase

f 1000 kg/m3, heavy and continuous phase
D 0,000150 m smallest droplets
0,001 Pa s
L 10 m3/h
V 10 m3/h

The overall flow of the phases must be laminar

4) Use the correlations showed in the lectures to calculate the terminal velocity with the
following values
g 1 kg/m3
l 1000 kg/m3
l 0,001 Pas
0,07 N/m

D 0,01 m

Then start from 0,0001 and multiply D with 1.4 repeat this 19 times, analyze the behavior of the
terminal velocity, Re number etc. i.e. draw the terminal velocity as a function of D