Johnson Screens’ Shaped Support Grid is installed into the bottom head of hydroprocessing or gas dehydration vessels. This allows for increased media volume, increased run time, improved gas and liquid flow distribution, bed utilization and an overall more efficient process. The Shaped Support Grid performs better than traditional flat surface grid assemblies that are located near the tangent line of the head to shell weld. With traditional flat surface grids designs, the entire volume of the head is a dead area, with no reaction or adsorption occurring.

Johnson Screens’ Shaped Support Grid lies directly on the bottom head surface, allowing for the entire volume to be filled with media. Increased bed volume allows for the conversion of existing vessels to achieve higher process capacity and new vessels to be built shorter in shell length. Each panel’s stainless steel bottom surface ensures that no media will leak into the downstream process equipment. For process applications with coking potential, a Vee-Wire® screen surface is applied to the bottom to eliminate dead flow zones while still retaining media. Each grid panel is an enclosed element with a bolted and gasketed connection to the central hub. The enclosed design allows the SSG to expand and contract under the bed without compromising an outer perimeter seal. The encapsulated design is particularly useful in thermal swing regeneration applications.