4: @ Scale, For column diameters of less than approximately 3 ft [1 m}, it is more usual to employ packed towers because of the high fabrication costs of the small trays. For a very large column, liquid distribution problems may arise and this fact, coupled with the weight considerations of a large volume of packing, may lead to the choice of a plate tower. A preliminary estimate of tower diameter may be obtained from Figure 41. 1 System Factors Gas flow rate [hg/s] —= 9.005 0.01 0.05 04 05 1.0 1007 tof ‘Column diameter (in) = o Column diameter [m] —= Parameter is gas density (Ib/f®) [kg/m] 0 100 1000 10000 Gas flow rate (ib/tr] —= Fioure 4-1, Estimation of column diameter