Crude Stabilizer Foaming Factor

[EmmanuelTop]

For design of crude stabilization towers at low/moderate pressures (up to 10barg), foaming factor which should be considered is between 0.9-1.0, at least according to literature resources and similar services in upstream/downstream processing.

Recently, I found that Shell is applying extremely high foaming factor (0.6) for design of this type of columns. This results in enlarged tower diameter and special tower internals.

From my experience, this looks way too conservative and not justified in any way. Can you provide any further guidances and your opinions regarding this subject?

Thanks in advance,

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html