Influence of Elbow Orientation on Solid Particle Erosion for Multiphase Flow

Erosive wear of equipment in hydrocarbon and mineral processing pipelines can occur under multiphase flow. The 90° elbow configuration is a common flow changing device in the pipeline network used to redirect the flow direction. This paper highlights a CFD approach to study erosion-induced damage in 90° elbows due to the transportation of sand particles in the carrier phase. A discrete phase modeling (DPM) technique is employed to decouple the relationship of elbow orientation and erosion-induced damage in 90° elbows. The computational geometry and simulation parameters consist of horizontal to horizontal (H–H), horizontal to vertical (H–V), and vertical to horizontal (V–H) orientated 90° elbows with 50.8 mm inner diameter and fine sand of 50 μm size entertains in a liquid phase at 5 m/s flow velocity. The high erosion zones have been located near the outlet of the 90° elbow under fine particle impact with a maximum erosion rate of 5.5 mm/year in horizontal–vertical (H–V) oriented elbow.