Numerical modeling of sand particle erosion at return bends in gas-particle two-phase flow

In gas and oil industry, erosion damage to pipelines' bends and elbows due to the presence of sand particles has been a challenging issue. In this study, a computational model approach was used to evaluate the erosion rates at different vertical return bends: sharp bend, standard elbow, 180 pipe bend, and long elbow. The air ow in the pipe was simulated using the SIMPLE method and the k ! SST turbulence model. An Eulerian- Lagrangian approach was used to predict particle trajectories and related erosion rates. Different particle sizes and mass ow rates were considered, and Oka model was used in these simulations to evaluate the erosion rate. Under the same condition, the simulation results indicated that the sharp return bends experienced the highest erosion rates, and the 180 bends experienced the lowest erosion among the studied congurations. It was also found that the erosion rate was linearly proportional to the mass ow rate of particles for all cases studied.