James Risko - TLV Corporation
Reboilers using an inlet steam control valve arrangement can provide significant economic and control benefits to certain distillation tower installations. However, their reliability requires effective condensate drainage from the steam space. Unfortunately, there are multiple instances of reboilers experiencing water hammer-related issues such as channel head gasket and tube bundle damage or the sewering of condensate. These issues may be more commonly experienced with horizontal type reboilers.
Many of these problems can be avoided/mitigated with a proper condensate drainage design, but it often occurs that the reboiler system experiencing difficulty had improper original design or installation and requires correction for improvement. This presentation explores why certain problems occur and provides engineers with some specific key design considerations necessary for proper performance in draining reboilers.