High Pressure Technology

Abstract

The growth in the use of high pressure by the chemical industry during the twentieth century, leading to the discovery of polyethylene by ICI in the early 1930s, is described briefly. At that time, the pressures required for the large‐scale production of low density polyethylene (LDPE) were well beyond the normal design practices for continuously operating plants and the development of the process in both the United States and Europe posed formidable problems. This led to a number of different modifications to the high pressure procedure used by ICI. The basic principles governing the design of thick‐walled cylinders to withstand static high internal pressure are reviewed. It is shown how these principles together with the results of much work carried out since the 1940s, particularly that directed toward increasing the fatigue strength of cylinders subjected to pulsating internal pressure, were used to develop both stirred and tubular reactors, reciprocating compressors, initiator pumps, etc, for use in the production of LDPE at pressures up to about 345 MPa. Most of the article is devoted to the design of continuous chemical plants; some attention is given to the problems of designing equipment for isostatic compaction which is operated as a batch process.