Abstract
Solid particle erosion is an important flow assurance concern encountered in existing as well as new oil and gas pipelines. In spite of the sand control/management techniques implemented down-hole, fine sand (less than 50-75 microns) often may find its way into the piping components of onshore, offshore, and subsea facilities causing erosion/wear and subsequent pipeline integrity issues. Suitable design of the piping components with capability to monitor wear at hotspots and/or flow manipulations could be made if the erosive impact of this fine sand could be quantified by predictive methods using CFD framework. In this work, experimental results and CFD erosion prediction in a 50.8 mm (2 in) erosion test loop of elbows in series have been reported. The test has been carried out using air/sand system with air flow rate of 32 m/s and 28 micron sand of 0.0025 volume percentage concentration. The thickness loss in the elbows measured using ultrasonic erosion probes has been reported. CFD modeling of the elbows in series has been carried out with the single particle erosion models reported by Oka et al. (Wear, 2005), DNV (DNV RP o501), Grant and Tabakoff (J. Aircraft, 1975) and E/CRC (Zhang et al., J. Fluids Engg., 2009) and predictive capability of these models has been compared to experimental results.
