Feasibility Study of Gamma Ray Transmission Technique in Distillation Column Using Monte Carlo Simulation

몬테칼로 전산모사를 이용한 감마선 투과계측 증류탑 진단기술의 타당성 연구

The density profile measurement technology by gamma transmission has been widely used to diagnose processes in the field of refinery and petrochemical industry. This technology can reveal a clue and position of abnormal phenomenon of industrial processes during their operation. In this paper, the feasibility of the gamma transmission technology for detecting changes in the amount of fluid in a distillation column was evaluated by using Monte Carlo simulations. The simulations assumed that $^{60}Co$ (1.17, 1.33 MeV) sources and NaI (Tl) detectors (${\Phi}5{\times}5cm$) are located in opposite sides of a column and it concurrently moves in vertical direction. To determine the dependency of a spatial resolution on aperture size of a collimator, the simulation model for a tray in a column were simulated with the aperture sizes of 1 and 2 cm. The thickness of the high density area including a tray and fluid was 7.6 cm in the simulation. The spatial resolution of the tray was 8.2 and 8.5 cm, respectively. As a result, it was revealed that the conventional density profile measurement technique is not able to show the deviation of liquid level on a tray in a column.