Conceptual & Functional Engineering

Overview

Processing Vessels Overview

Besides ordinary storage of bulk solids, silos can also act as processing vessels in which materials are dried, purged of VOCs, heated, cooled, cured, conditioned, or tempered. To facilitate processing, the vessels are equipped with heat exchangers or are modified to permit gas and/or steam injection. Examples of processing vessels for bulk solids include:

Purge columns for polyolefins
Conditioning of food products (e.g., sugar, wheat)
Hopper dryers for reducing moisture of biomass or plastics
Contact bed reactors (e.g., catalyst regeneration, reducing operations for DRI)

Conditioning silo internals.

J-Purge system

Silo cone fabrication

Our Approach

How do we design processing vessels?

Jenike & Johanson uses a scientific method to design processing vessels based on measured kinetic, thermal, and material flow properties. Using our proprietary two-phase flow models, we model solids velocities and gas flows, which allows us to design systems providing efficient processing while preventing flow problems such as plugging, erratic flow, and segregation.

We provide effective functional engineering for processing vessels considering:

General configuration that meets your needs (e.g., throughput, spatial constraints)
Critical bulk material flow properties that help specify vessel design parameters
Internal surfaces required to provide mass flow discharge
Specialized internals required for anti-channeling gas injection (J-Purge™), control of residence time, or reduction of segregation during filling

Our Expertise

Experience Highlights

Polypropylene purge column built at European petrochemical complex
Retrofit of polypropylene purging vessel in Middle East with J-Purge™ custom insert kit assembled entirely through small man-way access door
Gravity flow contact bed dryer for reducing biomass moisture to half original value
Design of new high density polyethylene purge bin for removing hydrocarbons
Design of sugar conditioning vessel to ensure drying does not cause caking

Next Steps

What's Next?

Jenike & Johanson can also provide complete equipment design and supply services based on our functional engineering recommendations. We also are able to perform structural engineering and load calculations using our proprietary methods in addition to commercial software tools.

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