Modelling Erosion using Computational Fluid Dynamics – ANSYS

A numerical simulation is proposed of erosion–corrosion phenomena in two-phase
flows comprising of immiscible liquid and particulate solid. The simulation geometries
are a pipe bend and bean choke the evaluated quantity is the wall erosion–corrosion
brought about by the flow of a fluid mixture of liquid phase and a solid phase. A
computational fluid dynamic tool has been adopted for the simulation of the flow field
inside the piping and for the simulation of the particle trajectories and impact rates. As far
as corrosion is concerned, a passivating and an actively corroding metallic material have
been considered. Erosion model parameters have been derived from experiments
correlating particle impact angle and erosion rate. Corrosion model parameters have been
obtained from electrochemical measurements. The effects of the key operating parameters
(fluid flow velocity and particulate content) have been evaluated by a two-level design of
experiments approach. The single most important effects on synergistic damaging and on
the ratio of corrosive to overall damaging have been identified. Erosion-enhanced and
erosion-limited effects of flow conditions have been highlighted for the passivating and
for the actively corroding alloys, respectively