Koch-Glitsch

Tray enhancements
Koch-Glitsch has invested significant research and development resources to understand the performance issues of conventional trays and strategically address each one of them. SUPERFRAC® trays and the know-how to design and apply them are the products of that investment.

Koch-Glitsch has targeted three major areas for enhancing the performance of conventional trays:

Advanced downcomer technology
Active area enhancements
Inlet area enhancements

Advanced downcomer technology

A thorough understanding of downcomer flooding mechanisms in a wide variety of services is critical to successful application of high performance tray technology. Advanced downcomer technology developed by Koch-Glitsch provides the capability to accurately size and shape the downcomer, which provides the following benefits:

Conventional downcomers for standard tray construction and simple installation
Truncated downcomers to maximize active area for vapor-liquid contact
Multi-chordal side downcomer skirts for longer flowpath length and greater efficiency
Multi-stage downcomers for additional liquid-handling capacity
Multi-pass downcomers for reduced weir loading and improved column capacity
PURGE™ downcomers as the ultimate solution for sediments in severe fouling services

Active area enhancements

Koch-Glitsch has developed a variety of valve styles and technologies to enhance the vapor-liquid contacting that takes place on a tray deck, including:

MINIVALVE® decks

Large diameter fixed valves
Bubble promoters
Proprietary design techniques

The variety of valve styles and technologies are used to enhance the effective bubbling activity on the tray and improve the flow of fluid across the tray. This results in improvement to both hydraulic performance and mass transfer efficiency on the deck.

Inlet area enhancements

Inlet area enhancements, such as bubble promoters, can provide improved capacity, better froth initiation, and improved bubbling activity on the tray, thus also increasing vapor-liquid contact efficiency.

SUPERFRAC® trays use inlet area enhancements to eliminate the vapor and liquid maldistribution and stagnant zones that can occur on conventional trays. These enhancements promote uniform flow distribution, which improves the hydraulic performance and contact efficiency of the tray.