Experimental analysis of the hydrodynamic performance of an industrial-scale cross-flow sieve tray

This work reports the hydrodynamic description of a large-scale sieve tray equipped in an air/water column mockup. The test tray accommodates a multi-probe flow profiler for simultaneous conductivity measurements. 3D liquid holdup distribution, liquid residence time distribution and effective froth height distribution are obtained at high spatiotemporal resolution for several gas and liquid loadings. The liquid flow and mixing patterns are visualized via tracer-based experiments. The methodologies used for acquiring these distributions are discussed in this work. Thorough examination of the processed experimental data reveals the hydrodynamic characteristics of an operational sieve tray for the studied loadings.