Adjustable Perforated Bubble Plates

[rad14701]

Here is an idea I have been kicking around for perforated bubble plates... Numbers have been kicked around regarding the percentage of plate area that should be perforated being in the 30% range... But that percentage may or may not be accurate for every plate within the column, and this is where my idea comes into play...

Lets say a person was to make adjustable perforated plates so they can be tweaked either between runs or as the run is progressing... This could be accomplished by using two identical plates, one fixed and one moving, machined within close tolerances to avoid excessive leakage, and some type of adjuster... The simplest adjuster would be one that could be accessed by removing the sight glass for each plate requiring adjustment... There are plenty of ways that we could think up for externally regulated adjustments...

How this would work is that the plates would start out with somewhere between 30% - 40% perforated voidage with the two plates set identically atop one another... This percentage could be reduced by turning the adjustable plate which would effectively close the opening in an elliptical cats eye fashion...

The benefit of this type of perforated plate is that, for example, you could have the bottom plate wide open and be able to gradually close the plates so that more reflux would remain on the top plate... This would most likely alos allow for more plates to be used in a small column without experimenting with performation sizing and percentages...

This has been kicking around in my head for a couple of years now and I thought this would be a good time to present it being as so many members are showing interest in building "flutes" these days... This might be a good alternative to bubble cap plates...

Ideas and/or comments...???