Chinese Journal of Chemical Engineering, 19(5) 815ü820 (2011)

CFD Simulation and Experimental Validation of Fluid Flow

in Pre-distributor*

ZHANG Lühong (჆ে‫)ۿ‬1, GAO Guohua (‫)ܟڳغ‬1, SUI Hong (ഺ‫)܃‬1,2, LI Hong (ह‫)܀‬1,2
and LI Xingang (ह᳨‫)ر‬1,2,**
1
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
2
National Engineering Research Centre of Distillation Technology, Tianjin 300072, China

Abstract Liquid distributor is a very import internal for distillation columns. Pre-distributor is usually set on the
top of distributor for initial distribution. Fluid flow in pre-distributor is a complex system of variable mass flow
with many orifices and sub-branches. Consequently, the two phase modeling of pre-distributors was carried out and
the homogeneous model with free surface model was applied. The numerical method was validated by comparing
with experimental data. Using the simulated results for different pre-distributors, the impacts of inflow rate, location
and orientation upon the outflow distribution were investigated. Furthermore, influences of the outflow distribution
for pre-distributor on liquid uniformity in trough were also analyzed. The conclusions can be adopted for the struc-
tural design of liquid distributor and pre-distributor of large scale.
Keywords pre-distributor, computational fluid dynamics, orifices, trough, outflow distribution

1 INTRODUCTION effects of flow status upon outflow uniformity.

Liquid distributor is one of the most important
internals placed on the top of packings. It allows the
feed liquid and return liquid to evenly distribute on
packing surface in order to form initial distribution.
There are many different types and structures for liq-
uid distributors, but trough liquid distributor is the
most commonly used in industry [1]. Typically,
pre-distributor is expected to set above trough liquid
distributor to ensure better distribution of liquid.
Fluid flow in pre-distributor is a system of vari-
able mass flow including many orifices and sub-
branches with complex flow conditions. Identification
of the flow pattern in the pre-distributor is critical for
better understanding the mass transfer in the distilla-
tion column and is beneficial for the column structure
optimization. The outflow distribution could be ob-
tained by experiments, however, the flow characteris-
tics inside the liquid distributor are difficult to capture
by experimental methods due to the difficulty of
measurement. In addition, it is difficult and expensive
to guide structural design of fluid distributors in large
scale by experiments. The development of theory and
software for computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
renders it possible to acquire inside flow status so that
these problems can easily be solved by numerical
simulation method. However, there are only a few
research reports [15] and still many deficiencies about
the CFD study of pre-distributor. For example, liquid
single-phase flow was mostly used for the CFD mod-
eling with simulation results biased to experimental
data; only single orifice or small number of orifices
were studied. Moreover, studies are needed on the
flow field within the pre-distribution pipe and the
Therefore, the outflow through the orifices and
the flow characteristics of pre-distributors were inves-
tigated numerically using CFD method. Three-
dimensional (3D) two-phase flow simulation was car-
ried out with Euler-Euler formulation provided by
ANSYS CFX for multiphase calculations. A VOF-like
method [6] named the free surface model was introduced
to this algorithm for the calculation of free surface
flows. As the first part of the study, the simulated out-
flow distribution through orifices was compared with
experimental data to verify the numerical method. Then,
the effects of flow rate, feed direction upon the flow
field, and the outflow distribution within pre-distributor
were discussed. Additionally, pre-distributors connected
with a distribution trough were modeled to study the
influence of two-phase flow field in pre-distributor on
the flow pattern and the outflow distribution of the
trough. All the conclusions gained from the CFD
modeling can be used to guide structural optimization
of industrial distributors.
2 OBJECTS OF SIMULATION
Three kinds of pre-distributor (Fig. 1) were mod-
eled. Pre-distributor I [Fig. 1 (a)] was a straight pipe
with orifices for water outflow. As for this
pre-distributor, two pipes with different sizes and dif-
ferent numbers of outlets were concerned in this study.
One was 4 m long with diameter of 100 mm and 20
orifices of M22 mm, which was used for the validation.
The other one of industrial size was 10.3 m long with
diameter of 203 mm and 12 orifices of M55 mm. In
fact, short pipes are usually applied as liquid outlets in

Received 2011-06-12, accepted 2011-08-31.

* Supported by the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (2009CB219905, 2009CB219907), and
the Program for Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Teams in Universities (IRT0936).
** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: lxg@tju.edu.cn
816 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 5, October 2011

(a) Pre-distributor with outlet orifices

(b) Pre-distributor with outlet pipes

(c) Pre-distributor and troughs

Figure 1 Different computational subjects for two-phase flow modeling of pre-distributor

order to ensure accurate falling points. Pre-distributor II 3 CFD SIMULATION MODEL

[Fig. 1 (b)] was a combination of a 11.5 m long
pre-distributor with 10 outlet pipes of 240 mm diame- There are two different sub-models, the homo-
ter and a trough with a cross section of 0.72 m width geneous model and inhomogeneous model, available
by 0.75 m depth. In addition, 8 simplified shunts were for Euler-Euler multiphase flow. The former is a
set up on both two sides of the trough as water outlets VOF-like multiphase flow model developed for the
with 0.3 m width and 0.35 m depth. calculation of free surface flows. Free surface model
Pre-distributor III [Fig. 1 (c)] was used to study [6] was introduced to the homogeneous model for the
the affect of flow characteristics in pre-distributor on two-phase flow modeling of pre-distributor.
liquid distribution of the trough, which was also 11.5 The conservation equations based on the
m long with only 4 outlet pipes of 229 mm diameter Euler-Euler homogeneous model are listed below:
and fed water to 4 distribution troughs at their center Continuity equation:
points. These distribution troughs located symmetri-
cally on both sides of the main feed pipe with different wU
 ’ ˜ ( UU ) 0 (1)
numbers of outlet pipe and same size for cross section wt
of 0.6 m width by 0.45 m depth, the two troughs away
from the main feed pipe was 7.78 m long and had 17 Momentum equation:
short pipe outlets while the two troughs near the The homogeneous model for momentum trans-
main feed pipe was 10.16 m long and had 21 short port assumes
pipe outlets. UD U, 1İ D İ Np (2)
Liquid distributor in industrial scale has so large
pipe size but so small outlet orifices that it is difficult and the momentum equation:
to capture the structure of the small orifices with a w
limited number of meshes. ANSYS ICEM CFD was
adopted for meshing with the octree mesh method. wt ¬ 
( UU )  ’ ˜ ª UU … U  P ’U  (’U )T º
¼  S M  ’p

This method is based on an algorithm that ensures (3)

refinement of the mesh where necessary, but maintains with
larger cells where possible, allowing for faster com-
Np Np
putation. The mesh numbers for these three kinds of
computational subjects are 500, 1000, 1800 thousands, U ¦ rD UD , P ¦ rD PD (4)
respectively. D 1 D 1
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 5, October 2011
Volume conservation equations :
Np
¦ rD 1 (5)
D 1
Pressure constraint:
pD p (6)
For free surface flow, the following equation is
used for interfacial area density:
2 ’rD ’rE
ADE
’rD  ’rE
If there are just two phases in the simulation, it is
simplified to
ADE ’rD
The standard k-İ turbulence model was used for
the turbulence simulation. As for boundary conditions,
velocity for water inlet, pressure for outlet and
non-slip setting for walls were applied in accordance
with operation conditions. As for the initial condition,
computational domains were filled with immobile air.
4 MODEL VALIDATION
Experiments were carried out to validate the per-
formances of modelling including physical model,
multiphase model and boundary conditions setting.
Fig. 2 shows the setup for hydrodynamics test of
Pre-distributor I. The volume flow rate at the liquid
inlet was 14 m3·h1 (UL 0.5 m·s1) and the corre-
sponding Reynolds number was about 5.6×104. Drain-
age pipe was used to prevent liquid spills from di-
rectly outflow near orifices. Liquid mass flux of each
outflow was measured to compare with modeling re-
sults for validation.
Figure 2 The setup for testing the hydrodynamic per-
formance of the pre-distributor for validation
1üpool; 2üelectronic scale; 3übucket; 4üdrainage pipe; 5ü
pre-distributor; 6ürotor flowmeter; 7üvalve; 8üwater pump
The fundamental behaviour of the simulated re-
sults (square symbols) could be validated by experi-
mental data (circles) in Fig. 3. Obviously, the simula-
tion results have the same trend as the experimental
results. Although they agree well in general, errors
817
(7)
Figure 3 Compare of simulated mass flow through the
outlet orifices and experimental data
ƵCFD results;ƽexperimental data
(8)
still exist especially at the end of pre-distributor. It is
assumed that the disagreement is particularly caused
by the remaining air bubbles in the vessel that is un-
avoidable during the test setup. On the other hand, the
numerical model employed in this study focuses on
the liquid phase, but the gas phase is neglected by de-
activating the cells containing gas only.
5 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Liquid feed rate
Kister [7] pointed out that variable mass flow
with multi-orifices can be divided into five general
flow patterns due to different inlet flow rates for the
same flow channel. Therein, the outflow increases
from the first orifice to the last one for large inflow
velocity, while it tends to be decrease due to small
inflow velocity and the resulting lower pressure drop
at orifices.
The simulation results for the Pre-distributor II
with different inflow velocities are presented in Fig. 4.
As for the smaller velocity (UL 1.5 m·s1), the out-
flow distribution is consistent with Kister’s clarifica-
tion, whereas the outflow increases for first several
orifices and then decreases for the remaining ones for
Figure 4 Outflow distribution of the orifices for different
inflow velocities
Liquid velocity at inlet/m·s1:Ƶ1.5;ƽ2.0;Ʒ2.5;ͩ3.0
818 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 5, October 2011
Figure 5 Simulated results of distribution planes of water volume fraction for different inflow velocities
the same pre-distributor with larger inflow velocities
(UL 2.0 m·s1, 2.5 m·s1, 3.0 m·s1). Furthermore, the
larger the velocity is, the more orifices in the increas-
ing trend there are.
In simulation, the distributions of liquid volume
fraction are different from inflow velocities. The first
part of pre-distributor close to inlet is full of water
(Fig. 5), but the water layer is gradually thinner for the
remaining part. Additionally, the length of this full
filled part increases with the increase of inflow veloc-
ity. Combination of Figs. 4 and 5 helps to conclude
that the outflow increases for the orifices in the fully
filled section of pipe and the outflow for orifices un-
der half filled pipe is vice versa. This result is in ac-
cordance with Kister’s viewpoint.
When the inflow velocity is above 2.0 m·s1, liq-
uid mass flow is large enough to fill the whole pipe at
the beginning and a layer distribution occurs for the
rest pipe segment. As for the segment full of liquid,
the outflow increases due to the decreasing of liquid
velocity caused by decreasing liquid mass flow and
the resulting higher static pressure at first orifices. As
for the segment covered by a layer of liquid, the out-
flow presents a downward trend because of decreasing
height of the layer and the resulting lower pressure
along the pipe.
5.2 Different directions of feeding pipe
It has been found in different test series that the
outflow is sensitive to the exact location and orienta-
tion of the feeding pipe [2]. Therefore, four different
pre-distributors were simulated. One of these
pre-distributors is a straight pipe with lateral feeding
and industrial size shown in Fig. 1 (a); the other three
pipes are of the same size but using central feeding
with different inlet designs.
Figure 6 shows the simulation results for these
four pre-distributors with the same inflow velocity (1
m·s1). The outflow distributions are apparently dif-
ferent for these 4 types of pre-distributors. A trend of
decreasing is clearly observed for the straight pipe
with lateral feeding. But for the pre-distributors with
horizontal feeding and 45° feeding from the central
pipe, the outflow distributes with increasing trend in
both left and right ends of the pipe. Moreover, mass
flows of outlets for the left segment are mostly larger
than the right ones due to the bias flow caused by the
orientation of entrance. For the pre-distributor with ver-
tical feeding in the centre, the outflow is low for the
centre orifices 6 and 7 due to the central inflow of the
pre-distributor. However, it is the most uniform dis-
tribution for the outlet orifices in vertical feeding pipe.
Figure 6 Outflow distribution of the orifices for different
feed pipe directions
inlet pipe direction: Ƶ direct feed; ƽ horizontal feed; Ʒ 45°
feed;ͩvertical feed
Different outflow distribution is resulted from
different flow characteristics within the pre-distributors.
In Fig. 7, it is showed that simulated planes of water
volume fraction differed from each other for those 4
 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 5, October 2011
Figure 7 Simulated results of distribution of water volume fraction for feed pipes with different feeding directions
pipes although they all belong to layer distribution
under such inflow velocity. Using a central feeding,
the liquid volume fraction is smaller at the central part
and larger at the end part because of the high lateral
velocities resulted from centre inflow and the liquid
accumulation resulted from end wall reflection. Ob-
viously, there is serious bias taking place in the centre
of pipes with horizontal feeding and 45°feeding.
5.3 Liquid distribution in the trough
Pre-distributor with multi-orifices is the common
type of inflow for the top row of trough of a large
scale liquid distributor. Therefore, the uniformity of
liquid level within the upper troughs is directly related
to the outflow distribution of pre-distributor. Fig. 8
shows a distribution of the height of free surface in the
upper trough for the pre-distributor II which indicated
that the height of liquid level increased with the in-
crease of inflow velocity. However, liquid levels are
all decreasing for different velocities; this leads to a
same decreasing trend for outflow of the shunt troughs,
which can be found from Fig. 9. In a word, liquid
level presents serious inconsistencies for the first
trough under the pre-distributor with long lateral
Figure 8 Simulated liquid level within the trough for
different inflow velocities
UL/m·s1: 1ü1.5; 2ü2.0; 3ü2.5; 4ü3.0
819
Figure 9 Outflow distribution for the shunts of upper
trough with different inflow velocities
1.5 m·s1; 2.0 m·s1; 2.5 m·s1; 3.0 m·s1
feeding; this results in the nonuniformity of outflow
through the shunts. Furthermore, an uneven distribu-
tion of the upper trough may further affects the distri-
butional performance of liquid in the trough below.
The computational domain of Fig. 1 (c) including
both pre-distributor and troughs was modelled for the
study whether the pre-distributor with central feeding
is better for uniform liquid level of the trough. The
simulated distribution for water volume fraction is
presented in Fig. 10. As shown in this figure, these
two troughs located on both sides are almost full of
water with small bubbles scattered, while these two
close to the entrance are only half full with a serious
fluctuation in the centre. The reason is that impact on
the wall for the inflow makes large lateral velocity;
this leads to smaller outflow through the outlet pipes
near entrance.
Figure 11 is for the outflow distribution within
those four troughs. It is shown that there is a very
large outflow in the centre of trough 1 and 4 resulted
from high liquid level. On the contrary, the outflow
through the central outlets is very small for trough 2
and 3 due to the serious fluctuation and the resulting
thinner liquid layer. In addition, the outflow of the
remaining outlets has an increasing trend.
Since the central feeding still can not obtain more
uniform liquid distribution, it is suggested for structural
optimization with tapered design for the troughs or
820 Chin. J. Chem. Eng., Vol. 19, No. 5, October 2011
Figure 10 Simulated planes for water volume fraction within different troughs
Figure 11 Outflow distribution for different troughs
trough
Ƶ 1;ƽtrough 4;Ʒtrough 2;ͩtrough 3
variable sizes for the outlet pipes. Moreover, it is bet-
ter to avoid outflow close to the central entrance.
6 CONCLUSIONS
With free surface model for the calculation of
gas/liquid interface, homogeneous model has been
used for the two phase modeling of pre-distributors.
The simulated results agreed well with the experi-
mental data. The affects of liquid inflow rates and
feeding pipe directions upon outflow distribution have
been analyzed by modeling different pre-distributors.
It was concluded that liquid distributed differently
under various flow rates which could induce different
outflow characteristics. And the outflow was sensitive
to the exact location and orientation of the feeding
pipes. The simulation results showed that vertical
feeding in the centre was the best feeding way for the
pre-distributor. In addtion, the influences of outflow
performance of the pre-distributor on the liquid distribu-
tion in the trough have also been analyzed. It was found
that uneven outflow of the pre-distributor could fur-
ther affect the distributional performance of liquid in
the trough. Structural optimization was recommended
for more uniform distribution of liquid in the distributors.
NOMENCLATURE
A interfacial area density, m2·m3
g gravity acceleration, m·s2
Np total number of phase
p pressure, Pa
r volume fraction
SM momentum sources, kg·m1·s2
t time, s
U velocity vector, m·s1
ȡ density, kg·m3
ȝ viscosity, kg·m1·s1
Subscripts
Į phase Į
ȕ phase ȕ
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