Fractionation Research Inc.

FRI is a non-profit organization formed by petroleum, chemical and engineering companies to perform plant-scale research in distillation. It began in 1952, spearheaded by Dr. Karl Hachmuth and T. B. Hudson of Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Hachmuth was noted for his research into the design of mass transfer equipment, He realized that the effort required would be beyond the resources of a single company, and proposed the formation of a cooperative organization to pursue this work. Hudson became the first president of FRI. In 1954, FRI contracted to use a simulation facility at the headquarters of C. F. Braun & Co. in Alhambra, California. Operations continued at Alhambra until 1989, when Braun was acquired by Halliburton, Inc., and merged into its Brown & Root subsidiary (now KBR).

Location

FRI moved its facilities to Oklahoma State University (OSU) at Stillwater, Oklahoma in 1991.[2] FRI initially planned a five-year research program. However, the board of directors has repeatedly voted to extend operations.

Research scope

FRI has tested various types of fractionation trays and packings (both generic and proprietary designs), with the objective of developing correlations for predicting tray efficiencies and pressure drops. This information is needed to design fractionators, absorbers and strippers. It has also tested performance of other column internals such as liquid distributors. It periodically reports its findings to the member companies.

The OSU library maintains an unrestricted collection of FRI progress reports, plant tests, topical reports, consultants’ reports and annual reports that were issued during the period 1954 – 1970.

FRI has also produced a number of unrestricted instructional films and videos, which are listed on its home page. These are available to non-members.