Multi-fluid approach for the numerical prediction of wall erosion in an elbow

Wenchao Yu (1) , Pascal Fede (1) , Éric Climent (1) , Sean Sanders (2)

1 IMFT - Institut de mécanique des fluides de Toulouse
2 University of Alberta

Multiphase pipelineflows are widely used in the oil and gas industry to transport solid-liquid or gas-solid mix-tures. Erosion caused by the impact of solid particles is a major challenge for equipment maintenance and safety,especially in complex geometries such as elbows. In this work, a CFD study on wall erosion in a 90° standardelbow has been performed using a multi-fluid approach, also called Euler/Euler, for poly-dispersedfluid-particleflows. A model is used for the erosion prediction taking into account particle turbulent kinetic energy obtainedfrom the Euler-Euler approach. A good agreement with experiments is observed. The effects of wall roughnessand solid massflow rate on the erosion rate are also investigated. For a certain amount of sand passing throughthe pipe elbow, there exists a solid massflow rate for which the particle impact damage is most dramatic.

Mots clés: Euler-Euler approach; Erosion; Elbow; Numerical simulations

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]

Wenchao Yu, Pascal Fede, Éric Climent, Sean Sanders. Multi-fluid approach for the numerical prediction of wall erosion in an elbow. Powder Technology, 2019, 354, pp.561-583. ⟨10.1016/j.powtec.2019.06.007⟩. ⟨hal-02538161⟩