WO2020165073A1

WO2020165073A1 - Catalytic reactor with support beam

Info

Publication number: WO2020165073A1
Application number: PCT/EP2020/053268
Authority: WO
Inventors: Emir Zahirovic
Original assignee: Haldor Topsøe A/S
Priority date: 2019-02-14
Filing date: 2020-02-10
Publication date: 2020-08-20

Abstract

A catalytic chemical reactor comprises a support beam made from several assembled plate beam elements, where at least one of the plate beam elements comprises one or more aper-5ture cut through the plate beam element and possibly a plurality of apertures cut through a plurality of the plate beam elements in varying positions to optimize topology and adapt the support beam for fixing, room for internals etc.

Description

Catalytic reactor wi th support beam

This invention relates to a catalytic reactor with a sup port beam construction. In particular, the invention re- lates to a catalytic reactor such as a hydroprocessing re actor with a support beam made from a plurality of plate beam elements as part of the internals in the reactor, which improves manufacturing, pricing, delivery time for the catalyst support beams and the dimensions of the inter- nals.

In catalytic reactors, steel beams are required to support high loads in limited space, as for example for catalyst support grids. The beams are currently often manufactured in one solid block of steel. The thickness of large beams may easily exceed 200-300 mm. Steel blocks of this size are not topology optimized due to absence of flexible and fast methods to cut these sizes, (where topology optimization is here defined as the science that reduces the material used for a bearing structure to the points critically affected by the load) . The length and height of the support beams vary with the reactor vessel diameter and the function of the support beams. Lengths up to at least 6 meters are seen in practice which results in heavy support beams which are hard to handle and install.

The industrial method to cut the above mentioned thick nesses is by sawing, and it applies a heavy-duty band-saw cutting machine. The process is very time consuming with a single cut requiring hours or even days of cutting time. Besides time consumption, these machines offer very little flexibility as to how the cut is performed and the support beams cannot be produced with an optimized topology.

Only few workshops worldwide have machinery feasible for the mentioned cutting task. In a market with high demand and very few suppliers, large support beams are elements of construction affected by long delivery times and high prices .

In recent years, Topsoe has introduced the concept of split beams, where 2 or 3 thinner beams replace one individual one. The method addresses the issue of delivery time and prices, as the number of workshop that can cut steel thick nesses of ~50-100 mm is significantly larger than those that can cut 200 mm. However, the method still require a band saw, and thus topology optimization is still not pos sible .

Thus there is a need for a catalytic chemical reactor with a new and improved design for support beams which reduce the above mentioned disadvantages while providing at least the same structural stability and long term reliability as known solutions.

This is accomplished with a catalytic chemical reactor com- prising a support beam according to this invention. The support beam or several support beams comprises a plurality of plate beam elements arranged adjacent to each other to form a single unitary support beam. Each of the plate beam elements comprises a first and a second opposing long side. These opposing long sides may constitute parallel planes. A long side here simply means that the side extends further in a first (the long) direction than in any other direc tion. The first and second opposing long side are connected to each other by a top side, a lower side and two end sides, thereby forming a plate with at least four sides. It is noted that in some embodiments the plate beam elements may have more than four sides. The plate beam elements are arranged parallel and with at least one of the long sides of one plate beam element facing a long side of an adjacent plate beam element. Hence, the plate beam elements form a support beam having a first and second opposing long side surface when the plate beam elements are arranged as de scribed .

At least one of the plate beam elements comprises an aper- ture or a plurality apertures cut through the plate beam element, in other words cut through the plate beam element first and second opposing long sides. This/these aper ture (s) may have any shape and size which serves the pur pose best, of providing a light support beam structure without compromising the necessary strength of the struc ture. Also the apertures may serve the purpose of enabling space or passage for reactor components arranged near or even passing through the support beam. As already mentioned only one of the plate beam elements may comprise an aper- ture or a plurality of apertures. This may for instance be the case if an "inner" plate beam element, sandwiched by adjacent plate beam elements has apertures which serve to lighten the assembled support beam, while the "surrounding" or outer arranged plate beam elements are plates without apertures to increase strength and/or integrity of the as sembled support beam. But the support beam may also be an open construction, with through-going apertures in its plate beam elements; or even with apertures in all plate beam elements which are not through-going when they are as sembled to the support beam in a further embodiment covered by the invention.

In an embodiment of the invention, the at least one aper ture in one or several of the plate beam elements has an area of more than 5 cm², more than 20 cm² or even more than 50 cm². Hence, the aperture is more than a mere bolt or rivet hole or more than a lifting hole.

In an embodiment of the invention, the total area of the at least one aperture in a plate beam element is more than 2% or 10% of the area of the first long side. Said area of the first long side is defined as the area of the first long side including the area of any and all the apertures in said first long side. Again this embodiment of the inven tion is covering plate beam elements with apertures that are more than for instance mere bolt or rivet holes, which do not contribute significant to weight savings or allow space for elements which have to pass through a part of the support beam.

According to an embodiment of the invention the plate beam elements have a thickness between 1 and 31 mm. An important advantage of the present invention is that the support beam can be manufactured using very swift laser cutting tech nique and for small thicknesses even water jet cutting or other known fast steel cutting processes. When the thick ness of plate beam elements, when put together forming the support beam, each are below 31, these fast and low-cost steel cutting techniques can be employed. The actual thick ness which can be cut by for instance laser is depended in each case by the laser effect/intensity available, steel quality etc.

In a particular embodiment of the invention, the support beam comprises at least three adjacent plate beam elements: one or more intermediate plate beam elements which are sandwiched between a first side plate beam element on one side and a second side plate beam elements on the other side of the intermediate plate beam element (s) . Particular for this embodiment is that the first or the second, or both the first and the second side plate beam elements cover at least one aperture in one or more intermediate plate beam element (s) . In other words, the support beam will comprise at least one cavity completely closed in by the first and second side plate beam elements or open to one side of the support beam and covered by a side plate beam element to the other side of the support beam. Hence, the multiple plate beam elements allow for a variation of hollow bodies and half-open cavities in the assembled sup port beam which allows for weight reduction of the entire support beam without having to compromise on the necessary strength of the support beam and also allows the support beam to be adapted to any crossing or interfering other equipment near by the support beam. This "tailoring" of the support beam therefor allows material and weight -savings as well as compressing the internals in the catalytic chem ical reactor which increases the capacity of the reactor or reduces the size and prize of the reactor. In an embodiment of the invention, two adjacent plate beam elements have overlapping apertures with displaced edges.

As the support beam comprises a plurality of individually cut plate beam elements, the outer edges of each plate beam element as well as any apertures in each plate beam ele ments may be cut totally independent of any apertures or the outer edges of the other plate beam elements forming the support beam. Hence according to this particular embod iment, two adjacent plate beam elements may have overlap ping apertures where the edges of the aperture in each plate beam element are not exactly in the same position as a neighbouring plate beam elements. Thus the apertures can have a centre line angle which is different from 90 degrees to the longitudinal axis of the support beam, the apertures may vary in area from one plate beam element to the adja cent plate beam element just to mention a few a plurality of variations of the apertures in the plate beam elements and thus in the assembled support beam. In a further embod iment, the assembled support beam has at least one aperture which passes through all the plate beam elements it con sists of, a through-going aperture. As already described above, also this through-going aperture or several through- going apertures may have a centre axis which is non-perpen dicular to the longitudinal axis of the support beam.

In a further embodiment of the invention one or more of the plate beam elements of one support beam comprises a part, a plate section which is bent at an angle relative to the first long side of said plate beam element, i.e. one part of a plate beam element is bent at an angle relative to the another part of the plate beam element. It is understood that a plate beam element may comprise a plurality of parts which are bent relative to the main part of the plate beam element, i.e. to the part of the plate beam element which has the largest area. This is again an advantage taken from the fact that each of the plate beam elements can be made in a thickness which allows not only for swift and cost ef fective cutting, but also allows for other process such as bending and rolling. Thus, a large and strong support beam may be provided with bended parts used for instance for fixing the support beam in the catalytic reactor, for in- terlocking the plate beam elements to each other, for providing fixing parts for other internals of the reactor just to mention a few of the possibilities.

In a further embodiment of the invention, the support beam comprises massive plate beam elements and plate beam ele ments comprising sections with reduced material thickness or density, or it may only comprise plate beam elements with one or more sections with reduced material thickness or density. The sections with reduced material thickness can be sections with a pattern of apertures, where the ap ertures may have any shape and varying shapes. The sections may also comprise welded-in plates in apertures cut out in the plate beam elements. The welded-in plates can have a smaller thickness than the plate beam element it is welded to and it can also be made of a different material than the plate beam element itself.

According to an embodiment of the invention, the top sur face of the support beam, which is actually the top sides of all the plate beam elements assembled to form said sup port beam, may be covered or at least partly covered by cover means. The cover means can have the purpose of cover ing all the edges between adjacent plate beam elements, it may serve the purpose of protecting the inner plate beam elements from the harsh environment of the catalytic reac- tor for instance where the outer plate beam elements and the cover means are made of corrosion resistant steel, whereas the inner plate beam elements are made of less cor rosive resistant steel. The cover means may be a plate ma terial and like the plate beam elements it may comprise bended edges. The bended edges may serve to fasten the cover means to the support beam, to provide a tight assem bly and it may also serve to hold the plate beam elements together . To assemble plate beam elements to form a support beam, the catalytic reactor may comprise means for locking at least two of said plate beam elements together. These locking means may comprise through going holes in the plate beam elements and connecting means adapted to pass through said holes. The connecting means may be of any known kind; such as bolts or rivets. The locking means may also comprise U- clamps of any size, which assembles and fixes the plate beam elements together within the "U" . Several small parts or the majority of the support beam may be covered by said U-clamps, which may also be cover means as already dis cussed above. In a particular embodiment the U-clamps serve the purpose of both supporting the support beam within the reactor as well as assembling the plate beam elements. The reactor may be of any known kind, such as a hydroprocessing reactor, a methanol reactor or an ammonia reactor. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the present invention are explained, by way of example, and with reference to the accompanying draw ings. It is to be noted that the appended drawings illus trate only examples of embodiments of this invention and they are therefore not to be considered limiting of its scope, for the invention may admit to other equally effec tive embodiments.

Fig. 1-4 show a side view of a support beam according to an embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 5 shows a side view of a support beam according to a further embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 6 shows a side/upper view of a cut of the support beam of Fig. 5.

Fig. 7 shows a side view of a support beam according to a further embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 8 shows a detail side/end view of a support beam ac cording to an embodiment of the invention. Position numbers:

01. Support beam

02. Plate beam element

03. Plate beam element first long side

04. Plate beam element second long side

05. Plate beam element top side

06. Plate beam element lower side

07. Plate beam element end side

08. Support beam first long side surface

09. Support beam second long side surface

10. Support beam top surface

11. Support beam lower surface

12. Aperture

13. Plate beam element bent plate section

14. Plate beam interlock element

15. Plate beam element interlock protrusion

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Figure 1-4 shows a support beam 01 to be installed in a catalytic chemical reactor (as known in the art, not shown) according to the invention. In all four figures, the sup port beam is shown in side view in its full length and height. But as it is side views, only the plate beam ele ments first long side 03 of the nearest plate beam element 02, which is also the support beam first long side surface 08 can be seen. Further plate beam elements are hidden be hind this nearest and visible plate beam element. It is to be understood however that the support beam according to the invention comprises a plurality of plate beam elements which are assembled to one support beam. This will also be shown in more detail on the following figures. The support beams and visible plate beam elements on figures 1-4 com- prise a support beam top surface 10 / plate beam element top side 05; a support beam lower surface 11 / plate beam element lower side 06 and plate beam element end sides 07. There is not a support beam end side as such, since this is made of several plate beam element end sides, which may be bent in different angles and thus making more than one end side of the support beam as will be shown in the following figures. The difference between the four figures 1-4 is for one thing the top surface / top side, which according to the invention may have any optional shape as for instance straight (Fig. 1) or bent (Fig. 3-4) because this is easily achievable by for instance laser cutting the relatively thin plates which are assembled to one support beam. Also figures 1-4 varies in how many apertures 12 are made in the plate beam elements and the support beam In Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 a couple of large round edge apertures are made all the way through the support beam i.e. through each of the plate beam elements, in each end. In Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, these four round apertures are supplemented with a number of tri angular apertures, which serve to save material and weight of the support beam, while maintaining sufficient struc tural strength (topology optimization) , hence the slanted structures. Thick beams cannot be shaped easily: cutting takes a long time and specialized equipment. For very thick beams there are only a few workshops worldwide that have the necessary equipment. Support beams, which have to bear a high load, normally are solid and with a very simple ge ometry. Cuts are typically straight. This geometry is the produce of what is realistic to do. However, other geome tries optimized for topology may be able to bear the same load with an overall lighter construction.

If the beams are made by sufficiently thin plates, struc- tural apertures can be made by laser cutting, in an inex pensive and fast fashion.

Support beams including structural apertures are lighter and therefore cost less to manufacture. Lighter support beams are cheaper and more environmentally convenient to transport - the fuel required to power the transport means being dependent on the weight of the item to be trans ported. Similarly, lighter support beams are also easier to handle during installation in the catalytic chemical reac tor .

In figure 5 a support beam for a catalytic reactor (not shown) according to the invention, comprising plate beam elements with plate beam element bent plate sections 13 is shown. The plate beam element bent plate sections together form assembled bent portions of the support beam, which may be used for fixing the support beam to the inside of the catalytic reactor and to fix reactor internals such as re actor trays and grating. Also Fig. 5 shows how the aper tures in the support beam can be made at an angle to the longitudinal axis of the support beam, which is different from 90 degrees. This is easily done simply by cutting the apertures of each of the plate beam elements which together form the assembled support beam in different sizes and lo cations according to the invention. When assembled, this will form apertures in any shape and axis direction as well as hidden cavities within the support beam (not shown) . How the aperture cuts are made is seen in more detail in Fig. 6, which is a cut top/side view of the support beam shown in Fig. 5. Also Fig. 6 shows more clear, how the support beam in this embodiment consists of 7 assembled plate beam elements .

Support beams typically comprise final a kind of "T" por tion at each end, where the function of the "T" is to sta bilize the beam in vertical position. In conventional sup port beams, made of one thick plate, the "T" portion has to be welded to the support beam.

If the support beam is made from a plurality of assembled thin plate beam elements, each plate beam element can be bended at the extremities to form the required shape, in stead of welding. Welding is normally much more time con suming, and therefore expensive, than bending.

In support beams made according to the invention by paral lel plates, topology may be optimized in all directions, including in a direction orthogonal to the main side sur face of the beam. This adds a further degree of freedom in the design of the geometry.

Furthermore, this adds a degree of freedom in shaping the apertures through the support beams such that they can sup port other equipment or parts of other equipment.

A further embodiment of the invention is shown in Fig. 7, where the support beam has an aperture in the center part, the aperture may have a reduced surface from the support beam first long side surface to the support beam second long side surface 09, which is on the furthest and not vis ible side of the support beam in this view, which is also the plate beam element second long side 04. On Fig. 8 the assembled plate beam element bent plate sections is shown in more detail. In Fig. 9 and 10 an embodiment of the support beam is shown comprising plate interlock elements 14 serving to assemble the plurality of plate beam elements. In this embodiment, at least two of the plate beam elements comprise plate beam element interlock protrusions 15, which fits into apertures in the plate interlock elements. In the embodiment shown, the support beam comprises an upper and a lower plate beam interlock element formed also as a plate, and all the plate beam elements have plate beam element interlock protrusions on their top and lower sides. When assembled as shown in the Fig. 9 and 10, all the plate beam elements and inter lock elements are fixed together, thereby forming a fast, efficient and secure assembly of the support beam.

Claims

1. A catalytic chemical reactor comprising a support

beam, said support beam comprises a plurality of plate beam elements arranged adjacent to each other, each plate beam element comprises a first and a second op posing long side connected by a top side, a lower side and two end sides, said plate beam elements are ar ranged parallel with at least one long side of one plate beam element facing a long side of an adjacent plate beam element, thereby forming a support beam having a first and second opposing long side surface, a top surface and a lower surface, wherein at least one of the plate beam elements comprises at least one aperture cut through said pate beam elements first and second opposing long side.

2. A catalytic chemical reactor according to claim 1, wherein said aperture has an area of more than 5 cm², preferably more than 20 cm², preferably more than 50 cm².

3. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the total area of the at least one aperture in a plate beam element is more than 2% of the area of the first long side including aperture (s) of said plate beam element, preferably more than 10% of the area of the first long side in cluding aperture (s) of said plate beam element.

4. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the plate beam elements have a thickness between 1 and 80 mm, preferably be tween 1 and 31 mm.

5. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support beam com prises at least three adjacent plate beam elements, a first side plate beam element, at least one intermedi ate plate beam element and a second side plate beam element, wherein the first or the second or both the first and the second plate beam element covers at least one aperture in the at least one intermediate plate beam element, whereby the support beam comprises at least one cavity when the plate beam elements are assembled .

6. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least two adjacent plate beam elements have overlapping apertures with displaced edges.

7. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support beam has at least one aperture passing through all plate beam ele ments .

8. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the support beam has at least one aperture passing through all plate beam ele ments and the at least one aperture has a centre axis which is non-perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the support beam.

9. A catalytic chemical reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least one of the plate beam elements comprises a plate section which is bent at an angle relative to the first long side of said plate beam element.

10. A catalytic reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein one or more of the plate beam elements comprises means for fastening and/or supporting the support beam and/or plate beam element within the catalytic reactor.

11. A catalytic reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein at least one of the plate beam elements is massive and/or wherein one or more of the plate beam elements comprises one or more sections with reduced material thickness or density.

12. A catalytic reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the top sides of the plate beam elements together form a support beam top surface and comprising cover means for covering at least part of the support beam top surface.

13. A catalytic reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, comprising means for locking at least two of the plate beam elements together.

14. A catalytic reactor according to claim 13,

wherein the means for locking the plate beam elements together comprises at least one plate beam interlock element and a plurality of plate beam interlock pro trusions on at least two of the plate beam elements.

15. A catalytic reactor according to claim 14, com- prising two plate beam interlock elements formed as plates with apertures, one fitted to the top side of the plate beam elements and one fitted to the lower side of the plate beam elements, interlocking with plate beam element interlock protrusions on the top side and lower side of at least two of the plate beam elements .

16. A catalytic reactor according to claim 13,

wherein the means for locking the plate beam elements together comprises through going holes in the plate beam elements and connecting means for passing through said through going holes and/or wherein the means for locking the plate beam elements together comprises one or more U- clamps.

17. A catalytic reactor according to claim 16,

wherein the U-clamp furthermore is arranged to support a support beam in a vessel.

18. A catalytic reactor according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein said reactor is a hydropro cessing reactor, a methanol or an ammonia reactor.