Contacting column

Claim 1

An elongate upright contact column of less than thirty-six inches inside diameter having contact plates or trays normally used to separate the components of a liquid mixture to scrub gases or vapors with liquids and for fractionation of liquefied gases including rectification of liquid air comprising in combination: a plurality of cylindrical rings assembled in a stacked relationship thereby defining a column, each of said rings having a first end abutting the ring immediately above and a second end abutting the ring immediately below; the first end of each ring having a first annular reduced wall portion enlarging the inside diameter of the ring and a second annular reduced wall portion enlarging the inside diameter of the ring and adjacent the first annular reduced wall portion and of smaller diameter than said first annular reduced wall portion; the second end of each ring having an annular reduced wall portion decreasing the outside diameter of the ring so that when the rings are stacked, the annular reduced wall portion of the second end of each ring can be inserted into the first annular reduced wall portion of the ring below resulting in a lap joint of the rings with the second annular reduced wall portion of the ring below and the ring about defining a circumferential groove on the inner wall of said rings; an outer wall circumferential groove defined by the outer opposed ends of the lap joints being chamfered outwardly with a girth weld deposited in said outer wall circumferential groove; circular trays supported at their peripheral edges within said annular grooves on the inner wall of said column; the inner wall grooves being sized and the trays being of a diameter and thickness so that the relative size changes that take place in the column and trays during assembly and use prevent buckling of the trays by allowing free axial and radial expansion and contraction of said trays thereby preventing fluid from flowing between the tray and the groove as the column is operated; disposed within said column along the axis thereof a plurality of cylindrical pillar sections between adjacent trays and assembled in end to end relation with each pillar assembly having mated screw connections at either end which screw connections extend through a central aperture in the tray to be held therebetween; the circular trays having a major arcuate section containing perforations for allowing upflow of gaseous material from the space below in the column, a non-perforate arcuate section and an adjacent arcuate section having a downcomer opening, with an inlet weir between said non-perforate and perforate arcuate sections, an outlet weir between said perforate and downcomer arcuate sections and a baffle between said downcomer and nonperforate arcuate sections, the trays assembled so that the downcomer opening of the tray above is over the non-perforate arcuate section of the tray below, so that liquid from the tray above can collect in a shallow pool in the non-perforate arcuate section of the tray below, flow over the inlet weir around the perforate section of the tray for contact by using gaseous material over the outlet weir down the downcomer to the tray below, the baffle preventing fluid from returning to the non-perforate section of the same tray.