4.8. General McCabe-Thiele Analysis Procedure

The open steam example illustrated one specific case. It is useful to generalize this analysis procedure. A section of the column is the segment of stages between two input or exit streams. Thus in Figure 4-15 there are two sections: top and bottom. Figure 4-17 illustrates a column with four sections. Each section’s operating equation can be derived independently. Thus, the secret (if that’s what it is) is to treat each section as an independent subproblem connected to the other subproblems by the feed lines (which are also independent).

Figure 4-17. Distillation column with four sections