He grabbed a calculator. He had not accounted for the viscosity safety factor. The 15% pushed the design pressure drop above the available head. The liquid wasn't channeling because of the ratio—it was channeling because it didn't have enough energy to push through the distributor tray evenly.
"Page 687," he murmured. "The V-notch weir distributor. It’s rated for a turndown to 1.6 ratio. We're at 1.8. We're inside the operating window."
"But the vendor's data sheet says 2.0 is the minimum," Priya countered.