Abstract:
Sand erosion is a critical issue in the hydrocarbon industry. The pipelines used for
transporting oil and gas face severe erosive damage issues. Initially, erosive wear causes partial
damage to the flow-changing devices in the pipeline system. With time, the severity of erosive
wear enhances and causes a complete breakdown. The severity of erosive damage depends on
several parameters like flow velocity, particle size, concentration, material property, elbow
geometry, and flow phases. This research work involved extensive investigations in analyzing
erosive wear in 180° elbows numerically and experimentally. Multi-layer paint modeling (MPM)
technique was used to identify erosion hot spots. The influence of velocity, particle size, and
concentration was investigated in this research study. The erosion rate was quantified as mass loss
and thickness reduction for different operating conditions. Optical profilometry was performed to
analyze the influence of erosion rate on the surface roughness of a 180° elbow made of carbon
steel. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS)
analyses were performed to examine the microscopic mechanism of erosive wear and elemental
composition after the erosion test in 180° elbows. The experimental results were then validated
numerically using ANSYS fluent. A good agreement was seen between numerical and
experimental results.
