Research progress of sensitivity of liquid distribution in packed tower to the sloshing

Packed tower is the key equipment for natural gas pre-treatment on offshore floating production system. In the harsh environment of offshore oil and gas fields, however, the mass transfer behavior of packed tower is deteriorated for liquid maldistribution in the tower. In this paper, the worldwide research status of gas-liquid flow field and mass transfer behavior in packed towers under sloshing conditions was reviewed, and the research progress was analyzed from three aspects, including experimental study, numerical simulation and mechanism model. The experimental study is mainly carried out abroad, focusing on the effect of sloshing on the overall performance of packed tower and partially on the change of flow regime. The numerical simulation mainly surveys the effect of sloshing on the gas-liquid flow field at macro-scale. And the modified mechanistic model is, for the first time, used to analyze the effect of offshore conditions on liquid distribution in structured packed tower, and it provides a new research idea for studying packed towers. Based on actual engineering, it points out the deficiencies and future research focus of research methods on operation performance of packed tower under sloshing conditions, and provides the reference for optimization design of packed tower in floating environment.