Posted by Barry on April 17, 2000 at 07:45:29:
In Reply to: Sizing steam accumulator posted by Terry Dixon on April 13, 2000 at 15:48:50:
: One of the considerations in sizing a wet steam accumulator is the surface area of the water. Hicks "Standard Handbook of Engineering Calculations" 2nd ed. gives a limiting design factor of (0.3 x accumulator storage pressure in psig)lbs of steam hour per sq ft water surface. Does anyone have any other information on the safe release rate of steam from the surface of water?
I have some notes from a guru, but no book reference to back it up.
Yield from a wet accumulator (at 1/2 full to maximize surface area) without carry over = 3 x PSIA x surface area. E.G. an 8'dia. x 24' (ignoring end bells) operating at 100 psi. would be: 3 x 114 x 192 = 65,000 pounds of steam.
65000 / 3600 (seconds/hour) = 18#/second.
Find out the demand per cycle of your process and divide by number of seconds in the cycle to get demand per second. If it is less than above rate then it should work alright. Best to have a good baffel system at the discharge and keep velocity low.