Prospectus

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DST-30 Impact of Movable and Fixed Mini-Valves on Tray Performance Expected Benefit toMembers: Quantifying the performance of Mini-Movable and Fixed Valve trays using the same tray geometry will provide design engineers a non-biased choice when selecting the best tray for a particular process. Traditional Research Idea

Present Situation and Proposed Research: For many years, equipment suppliers have claimed that mini valves provide up to 20 25% higher capacity than the conventional round or rectangular valves. One vendor claimed up to 30% higher capacity for their mini-movable valve. To quantify mini movable and fixed valve enhanced capacities, FRI has performed Category 1 (FRI membership paid for) proprietary tray and packing tests since 1998, starting with the Sulzer / Nutter MVG valve tray. FRI members are balloted to select one proprietary tray and one proprietary packing for testing each year. Category 1 testing rules state that a vendor can withhold certain information about the

valve tray geometry. For most mini movable and fixed valve trays, information regarding the inlet downcomer features are often withheld by the vendor. Thus, the claim of 20 25% or 30% higher tray capacity may be a combination of both the valve and the enhanced tray active area caused by the inlet downcomer features. To determine whether the mini valve itself leads to over 20 % higher capacity than a conventional valve tray, the previously FRI tested mini-valves need to be investigated utilizing a tray geometry that remains constant. This permits an unbiased data set when comparing different mini-valves.

Proposed Internals and Test System: In the proposed testing of mini-movable and fixed valves, a reference round and rectangular valve must be tested first for comparison purposes. Nearly all valve types tested at FRI are open art. Valves to be tested are summarized as follows: Vendor Valve Type Previous FRI test Under Patent Notes Various V-1 or Ty.A or RV-1 Yes No Reference Sulzer/Nutter BDH™ No No Reference AMACS MaxFlow SEMV™ Yes Questionable Mini-Movable Sulzer/Nutter MVG Yes No Mini-Fixed Koch-Glitsch VG-0 Yes No Mini-Fixed Koch-Glitsch PROVALVE ® Yes No Mini-Fixed Raschig R-MV Yes No Mini-Fixed GTC GT-DMV Yes Yes Mini-Movable GTC GT-mFIX™ Yes Yes Mini-Fixed Sulzer UFM™ Yes Yes Mini-Movable Norwood/Glitsch MV-1 No No Mini-Movable Norwood MDV No No Movable

PROSPECTUS

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