Comparative Hydrodynamic Analysis of Narrow and Pilot‐Scale Bubble Columns with Internals

Abstract

For a stable operation of exothermic processes in bubble column reactors, an appropriate heat control is required, e.g., through dense internal tube bundle heat exchangers. Their impact on hydrodynamic characteristics and scaling approaches is studied for columns of different scales. Two different column dimensions (DN100 and DN400) were equipped with two common tube patterns of triangular and square pitches to study local fluid dynamics. Based on geometrical tube bundle scaling quantities, hydrodynamic similarity as a scale‐up criterion with respect to average holdups, phase distributions, and local gas structures can be reached.