(31d) Detecting Incipient Flooding in a Distillation Column

Distillation is a common unit operation, which is used to separate or purify components in a feed stream. Flooding is a common abnormal process condition wherein the distillation column stops generating a separation. This presentation will document experiments with the on-board SPM Block(tm) in the Rosemount 3051S(tm) DP transmitter to detect incipient flooding on-line in real time. A Rosemount 3051S(tm) DP transmitter was installed across the packed section of the 18? diameter distillation column at the UT, Austin, Separations Research Program facility. The on-board signal processing capability of the SPM Block(tm) was used to detect the change in gas flow regime at the onset of flooding and generate a robust incipient flooding alarm. There are thousands of distillation columns in service. Because this technique detects a physical phenomena intrinsically associated with flooding, it is believed to be widely applicable. Users of Rosemount DP transmitters will be able to confidently push their distillation columns closer to their operational limits and quickly eliminate flooding as a root cause of product quality issues.