Study of Erosion Behavior in Elbows Mounted in Series Using Computational Fluid Dynamics Method

Abstract

To date, numerous studies using experimental methods or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to investigate erosion in elbows have been published. However, most of these studies focused on erosion caused by large particles flowing through a single elbow, whereas erosion due to small particles in elbows mounted in series is largely ignored. Studying erosion in elbows mounted in series is essential for improving the design of pipeline systems. In this paper, a CFD model is developed and validated against experimental data in the literature. The effects of both the connecting length (i.e., the distance between two elbows connected in series) and the elbow radius of curvature on erosion behavior were investigated using the verified model. In addition, the Dean number and Stokes number were used to investigate particle motion. The results show that erosion in the second elbow first decreases and then increases, as the connecting length increases, and the maximum erosion zone always occurs in the first elbow. However, when the number of elbows is increased to four, interestingly, the maximum erosion zone is located in the fourth elbow. The findings are valuable and provide guidance for designing novel pipeline systems that can mitigate erosion.