Design of single vertical tube falling-film evaporation basing on experiment

An experimental study for fluid hydrodynamic characteristics in thin water films falling down the outside of a vertical tube was performed with the analysis of several factors about the uniformity and stability of the film. Liquid evaporation is of major interest for many fields in process engineering. One of these is chemical process engineering, where evaporation of liquids and generation of super heated steam is mandatory for numerous processes. Generally, this is performed by the use of classical pool boiling and evaporation process equipment, providing relatively limited performance. The performance of the film distributor will affect the production capacity and service life of the evaporator. In this publication a novel falling-film distributor which is used annular gap and inlet tube rotated tangentially 270° to guarantee the film uniformity is presented. Experimental data suggested that there is optimum annular gap distance is between 1.5 and 2.0 mm and the spray density should be controlled between 250 and 700 kg m⁻¹ h⁻¹. Several suggestions for evaporator design are proposed.