The role of flooding in the design of vent and reflux condensers

Reflux and vent condensers are vertical separators where film condensation occurs. A vapour mixture is supplied at the bottom of the tubes and encounters vertical cold surfaces. A falling film forms and exits from the bottom of the tubes, flowing counter-current to the vapour, but co-current to the coolant on the shell side. Flooding occurs when the condensate flow moves from a gravity regime to a shear regime. Vapour velocities at or above the flooding velocity will cause the liquid to exit from the top of the tubes rather than from the bottom. The main disadvantage of these condensers is the limited flooding velocity allowed. Several investigators propose correlations to predict the flooding velocity. In most cases these correlations come from isothermal experiments data, thus the general recommendation of using safety factors of at least 30%. This work compares these correlations to new experimental values of flooding in steam/air vent condensation. The experimental apparatus is a 3 m long, double-pipe condenser with an internal diameter of 0.028 m. The conclusions presented here will aid the design engineer to understand better the applicability of the discussed correlations in the design of steam/air vent condensers.