How to calculate the size of a hydrophobic tank
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As stated in the title, a trap is required to be installed on the reboiler steam condensate pipeline in place of the original steam trap. How should the residence time in the trap be determined? How to determine the size of a hydrophobic tank? I would appreciate your advice.
15 minutes! As required by the process department!
It depends on the drainage cycle and method of your hydrophobic tank: continuous drainage, or periodic drainage.
May I ask how these 15 minutes are determined, and which standards are followed? Still based on experience?
I’ve learned it, thanks! I just saw a post stating that drainage should be carried out regularly every 4 hours; in that case, the hydrophobic tank would need to account for a 4-hour retention time. Wouldn’t that make the hydrophobic tank extremely large? Which operating conditions are these two types suitable for respectively? I would appreciate your advice. Thank you!
It depends on you: you can schedule it once a day if you want, and then calculate the size of the hydrophobic tank. If it’s too long, you can shorten the time. After all, users surely don’t expect to have to wait several minutes between attempts, right? When designing, I try to schedule it once or twice per shift (8 hours); the key is to ensure that the containers are not too large.
Use automatic level control for continuous discharge; a volume with a residence time of at least 15 minutes is sufficient. For other intermittent methods, it depends on your own arrangements; the longer the interval, the larger the tank will be.
Thank you for clarifying that. In other words, regular discharge is generally used, and the size of the water separator tank is determined by taking into account factors such as the tank’s size (which should not be too large or too small), as well as time and experience； Then continuous discharge is suitable for conditions with particularly high amounts of condensate water; it is designed to be continuous in order to prevent the tank from becoming too large. I’m not sure if my understanding is correct Additionally, how should the residence time for continuous emissions be determined?
Okay, thank you! There is another question: how to choose between continuous emission and periodic emission? Is periodic emission more effective than continuous emission?
Continuous emission is generally considered, with intermittent emission being rare.
Correct understanding. Generally, the residence time for continuous discharge is 5–30 seconds, which also depends on the size of the tank.