(357e) Dan the Tray Man

Mr. Dan Summers’ contributions to the distillation world are immeasurable.  After graduating from SUNY at Buffalo, in 1977, Dan joined the Union Carbide distillation group in Charleston, West Virginia.  In 1980, he relocated to Tonawanda, New York, remaining in Union Carbide but with their Linde Division.  In 1988, Union Carbide’s Process Equipment group was acquired by UOP and UOP soon named him as the Tonawanda Engineering Manager.  In 1995, Dan moved to Houston to join Stone and Webster.  In 1997, he moved to Tulsa to join Nutter Engineering, which was acquired by Sulzer Chemtech in late 1998.  Dan is still in Tulsa with Sulzer Chemtech USA, Inc.

Mr. Dan Summers is highly proficient with process simulation, thermodynamics, distillation trays, column revamping and troubleshooting.  While with UOP, their Process Equipment sales increased by a factor of 10.  He is equally comfortable with crossflow, counterflow and cocurrent flow trays.  Dan has written many articles and presented many papers, 52 to be exact, and the topics included the following:  Beer columns, olefin towers, tray stability, 3-pass and 4-pass balancing, reboilers, fouling services, tray vibrations, push valves, V-Grid trays, dry tray pressure drops, performance diagrams and low-surface tension designs.  Many of the articles/presentations were coauthored by engineers from operating companies who benefitted from Dan’s distillation expertise.

 Mr. Dan Summers is a PE in the states of New York and Oklahoma and he is listed on 2 US patents (one on bubble cap trays and one regarding fixed valve trays).  He is the Chairman of FRI’s Design Practices Committee and is a Fellow of AIChE.  In addition, he co-chaired the recent rewrite of AIChE's Tower Testing Procedures.