Dynamic simulation of a multicomponent distillation column for D-T separation

Abstract

Cryogenic distillation (CD) process is being employed, among other applications, in tritium separation technologies and in case of ITER is one of the key processes in the fuel cycle. The ITER Isotope Separation System has to process by cryogenic distillation various mixtures of H-D-T depending from the various torus operation scenarios.Cryogenic distillation has also been employed to separate and concentrate tritium in a CANDU water detritiation system. Dynamic simulation of a distillation column gives information on the behavior of the system when fluctuations in flow feed or feed concentration may occur, with direct impact on the design of the control system.The objective of this work is to present a mathematical model for dynamic simulation of a multicomponent distillation column for D-T separation. The procedure of dynamic simulation is based on Lewis – Matheson method and tridiagonal matrix method for design, respectively simulate a multicomponent distillation column for D-T separation; the model is used to determinate the time required to reach steady state into the entire distillation column, after the occurrence of a process perturbation (e.g. modification of a feed flow, feed concentrations).