2023 RETA Breeze March-April

gallon, thus we would have lost 1.68 lbs. of ammonia for our 24 hour period or, for the sake of argument, let’s round our final number off to two pounds of ammonia per day. Now, let’s go back and take a look at our ground rules: first we needed to apply some common sense and try not to over think the issues at hand. I believe we did that. Second rule: did everything we do make sense, again I believe it did. And the third rule: it is what it is like it or not. Yes, I can support our results. However, let’s do one more thing before we put the third rule behind us and put this to bed. Let’s look at what we did and prove that the data we used is defendable. We first went to the USGS to use their data to obtain what a drop of a liquid is.Well, as far as I’m concerned, there is no better source than the USGS. Now, to prove if our logic and number makes sense, let’s go back and look at Webster drip chart. We see that if you have 60 drops per minute you could lose 113 gallons per month. During our exercise we determined that one drop equals 0.000043333 of a gallon. Thus, if we multiply our number per drop, it should reflect the Webster’s number for 60 dpm. Let’s see if we are correct. We have 43,200 minutes in a 30 day month; thus we multiply available minutes by 0.000043333; our result is 1.8719856 gallons. Now multiply that by 60 dpm; our number is 112.32 gallons per month, compare that to 113 gallons per month that is on the chart. Well I think it is what it is and it still all comes down to a drop is a drip and a drip is a drop and Marrella’s 2nd Law, nothing is as simple as it seems and as I said we had to start somewhere. The following is a comment I received from Jay Kliewer relating to the above (March / April 2010) QnA and since it was “printable” I thought I would share it with everyone, enjoy. Jim, I finally got a chance to read the latest RETA Breeze, Mar./Apr. 2010 Issue #2 and I really appreciated your response to the question about the release rate for an ammonia “drip” from a high pressure liquid line. Including

the flash gas factor is something that I think many would have overlooked. I do have a question that arises from the assumption that you made “a drop is a drip, just as a drip is a drop.” Applying Marrella’s 2nd Law I wonder if it is as simple as assuming that a drop of ammonia is the same size as a drop of water. A quick internet search yielded a surface tension of ammonia at -28ºF of 0.00307 lb./ ft. while Marks’ Standard Handbook for ME’s puts water at standard conditions at 0.00499 lb./ft. That’s a 63% difference! Now I realize that there is more to droplet size than surface tension, but it does play a big part. Consider now that you only have to reduce the diameter of a sphere by 26% to cut the volume in half and you can see how this assumption could lead to an overestimation of the release rate by more than double if a drop of ammonia is smaller than a drop of water. For the example that was given where four drops per minute only yielded 1.68 lbs./24hrs it really isn’t a big deal, but with higher drip rates that get us closer to the magic 100 lbs./24hrs it might be worth the consideration. Actual ammonia droplet size may be something that someone in a lab somewhere may want to measure, just so we would all know. Maybe I am overanalyzing the situation, but it was at least a fun exercise to think things through a little further. Thanks for provoking thought.

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Jay Kliewer, P.E. President & CEO California Controlled Atmosphere Jay, you are very welcome!

Question to all RETA Chapters: Do you make the Q and A part of your Chapter meeting or general discussion? If you have a question or comment for Jim visit our web site or he can be reached at J. C. Marrella & Associates, 5720 South Austin Avenue Chicago Illinois, 60638.

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