Static head in a vertical thermosyphon reboiler
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When calculating vertical thermosyphon reboilers, it seems that most books ignore the effect of static head pressure. However, recently I encountered a high-vacuum reboiler that encountered problems during operation – it simply wouldn’t start working. During the discussion, it was suggested that perhaps the static head was not taken into account in the calculations. How significant is the impact of the static head?
The static head is the vertical distance from the normal liquid level in the tower bottom to the lower tube sheet of the reboiler; the vaporization rate in a thermosyphon reboiler is closely related to the static head. So the hydrostatic head has a significant impact. For atmospheric and pressurized distillation columns, the static head is generally large ； The static head of vacuum distillation is generally low. You can take a look at this: “Optimal Design of Vertical Thermal Siphon Reboilers HTRI”; it’s available for download online in large quantities.