Abstract: As refining, petrochemical, coal-chemical and other facilities continue to develop toward large-scale capacity, tower vessels, their core process equipment, are also trending toward larger size and heavier weight. This trend poses significant challenges for tower design, manufacturing, transportation, lifting, and internal component installation, further underscoring the critical need and significance for lightweight design in large-scale tower vessels. This paper focuses on the key objectives of lightweight design for large-scale tower vessels. Based on extensive engineering practice data, research is carried out from three dimensions: optimization of tower structure, selection of high-performance materials and application of appropriate design methods. It is concluded that the adoption of high-efficiency tower internals, high-strength materials and refined design methods can significantly reduce the overall mass of towers and effectively overcome engineering challenges such as manufacturing, transportation, and hoisting arising from excessive vessel weight. Meanwhile, corresponding strategies are proposed for the lightweight design of large-scale towers, which are of great significance for improving the economic efficiency and market competitiveness of plants, breaking through bottlenecks in the engineering capacity of large-scale equipment, shortening project construction cycles, enhancing HSE standards and promoting the achievement of low-carbon emission reduction targets.

Key words: large-scale tower vesselllightweight; high-efficiency tower internalslhigh-strength materialslpressure test methodlsectional design of towerlstress analysis designlthickness of internals