Research Paper

A Computational Code for Sand Erosion Prediction in Elbows and Tees: An Improvement to the Direct Impingement Model to Account for Temperature Dependence
Mysara Eissa Mohyaldinna, Noaman Elkhatiba, Mokhtar Che Ismailb ,Razali Hamzahb Petroleum Engineering Programme b Mechanical Engineering Programme
a

One of the main consequences of sand production with oil and gas is wear and erosion of the sub-surface components and surface facilities. The erosion frequently takes place at components where flow disturbances occur such as elbows, tees, and valves (Salama, 2000). Barton (Barton N. A., 2003) has ranked the components according to erosion vulnerability in six levels from chokes as the most vulnerable to straight pipes as the least vulnerable component. Erosion in a ductile material is a form of material removal due to localized plastic strain and fatigue, whereas in brittle materials, surface cracking and chipping takes place as a result of particle impingement (Oyeneyin M.B., Peden J.M., Hossieni Ali, Ren G., 1995). The ultimate effect on a component may be wall thinning which progresses gradually to cause total failure of the component. Problems resulting from component failure are costs due to the component replacement, production loss due to leakage and process shutdown, and environmental pollution. The factors which affect sand erosion, in general, can be grouped as:  Parameters that are related to fluid flow such as velocity and fluid properties.  Parameters that are related to sand flow such as sand flow rate and particles characteristics.  Parameters that are related to the target component such as material hardness and geometry. To evaluate the erosion rate for a specific material, experimental investigations can be carried out in a measurement device such as jet impingement or lab-scale flow loops. The experimental results can be formulated as empirical correlations for future application as prediction tools. The main shortcoming of the empirical correlations is that they ignore sand particles tracking along the flowstream and the effect of sand particle shape on erosion rate. To overcome this problem, semi-empirical or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models can be used. In the semi-empirical models, the sand velocity is first tracked prior to its substitution to the model. In the CFD model, the solution accuracy is further improved by employing flow and turbulence solutions. In this work, selected empirical and semi-empirical models have been employed using visual basic (VB 6) programming to develop a simple, accurate, and flexible user-friendlyinterface package for sand erosion predictions in elbows and tees. The package can serve as a tool to predict the erosion rate due to sand flow, whether sand control or sand management techniques are applied. The paper discusses the employed models and their implementations along with the application results and validations.

The following terms and their symbols are used throughout the paper. Nomenclature c constant in API equation for erosional velocity. D Pipe diameter [m] d, dp ER Erosion rate [mm/year] G API gravity h penetration rate [kg/kg] L The equivalent stagnation length [m] P Hardness parameter [psi] Reo Particles Reynolds number. Sm Constant, accounting for geometry. SG Specific gravity. T Temperature [C]. V Velocity [m/s]. W Sand production rate [kg/s] X Volume fraction Particle size [m]

where C is constant. Its value as proposed by API RP 14 E is 100 for continuous service and 125 for intermittent service. Many questioned the accuracy of equation (1) on the ground that it neglects some important factors such as particle size and shapes, component geometries and fluid viscosity. Therefore, many attempts have been made to improve the accuracy and extend the applicability of Equation (1). Salama and Venkatesh have proposed a model for penetration rate prediction in elbows and tees (Salama M. M. and Venkatesh E. S., 1983). Their model in SI units assuming a sand density of 2650 kg/m3 may be written as follows:

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia Abstract Prediction of erosion rate is important for material selection and operations design in production and transportation of oil and gas industry. Using Visual Basic Programming (VB6), a computational package was developed to provide a comprehensive sand erosion prediction tool. The two models used are the Salama Model and direct impingement model (DIM). In the Salama Model, the particles velocity is assumed to be the same as the fluid velocity while in the DIM model; the sand particle velocities are estimated and substituted in the erosion model. Both models are critically reviewed and verified using measured data. The developed package is used to investigate the effects of different parameters on erosion rate. The parameters investigated are flow velocity, pipe diameter, and sand production rate. The effect of temperature on fluid viscosity and hence erosion rate is also investigated. 1. Introduction Sand is mostly expected to be produced with oil and gas whenever one of the following conditions is encountered (Salama, 2000; Fajaer et al., 1992): i. Low strength formations (<136 Bar) ii. Water breakthrough iii. Low pressure (reservoir pressure depletion) iv. High lateral tectonics Depending on the amount of produced solids, the severity of solids production problems range from a few grams per cubic meter of sand to complete filling of the tubing. Although the problem can occur in coal and chalk reservoirs, it is most likely to occur in sand reservoirs, hence sand production is the usual terminology (Fajaer et al., 1992). Two methods are used to prevent sand production. In sand control, sand production is avoided or minimized to an acceptable level. In sand management, sand production is allowed but its consequences are avoided by the monitoring and controlling of well pressures, fluid rates and sand influx (Tronvol J. et al., 2001)

ER = 37.585

WV 2 PD 2

(2)

Where ER is the erosion rate (mm/year), W is the sand production rate (Kg/s), V is the fluid flow velocity (m/s), P is the steel hardness parameter, and D is the pipe diameter (m). Salama and Venkatesh used equation (2) to calculate the erosional velocity for steel pipes using a P value expressed as a tensile strength of 1000 MPa for allowable erosion rate of 0.254 mm/year. This resulted in the following equation for erosional velocity.

Density [kg/m3] Fluid viscosity [N.s/m2] The dimensionless mass ratio [eq. (9)].
Subscripts: e erosional g gas l liquid

Ve= 0.152D W

(3)

m mixture p particle f fluid 2. Background Three methods have been proposed for sand erosion prediction in a flow process. 1. Empirical Methods. These are used to predict the erosion rate for a component (most probably an elbow or tee) by using simple empirical correlations with the fluid velocity (no particles or bubbles tracking). They can predict erosional velocity, the velocity above which erosion occurs. They are more applicable to gas flow where the dispersed phase (particles or bubbles) is almost following the fluid mean velocity. The erosional velocity Ve may be predicted using the equation provided in the American Petroleum Institute Recommended Practice -API RP 14 E, that is

The shortcomings of the Salama and Venkatesh model (equation 2) are its neglect of sand particle size and shape, and its inapplicability to two-phase (liquid-gas) flow. Their model also neglects the sand hardness, since it deals only with sand particulates where their hardness varies slightly, so we believe that neglecting of the hardness is logical. The steel material hardness is also not considered due to the fact that the model only deals with carbon steel materials. Salama (Salama, 2000) incorporated the effect of two-phase mixture density and particle size into Equation (2) and proposed the following equation.

ER = 37.585

2 11.574 WV m d Sm D2rm

(4)

Where d is particle diameter (m), D is the pipe internal diameter (m), and Vm and m are mixture velocity (m/s) and density (kg/m3), respectively. In Equation (4) Sm is a geometry-dependant factor given in Table 1. Equation 4 has been verified through numerous tests carried out using water and nitrogen gas. Since water and gas viscosities are almost constant, no viscosity parameter was included in the equation. Salama, however, expected that a higher viscosity would result in a reduction of the erosion rate (Salama, 2000).

Ve= c f

(1)

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A Computational Code for Sand Erosion Prediction in Elbows and Tees: An Improvement to the Direct Impingement Model to Account for Temperature Dependence

2. Direct Impingement Model (DIM) Method. In this method, sand erosion is predicted using simplified particle trajectory equations. This is a mechanistic model developed by the Erosion/Corrosion Research Center (E/ CRC) at the University of Tulsa to predict the penetration rate due to direct impingement at elbows and tees. The direct impingement model can predict the penetration rate after determining the direct impact velocity, erosion ratio (defined as ratio of mass of material removed to the mass of sand hitting the material surface), and erosion rate. The data required for the direct impingement model are those relating to the component (geometry and size), flow (velocity, density and viscosity), and particle (density, size, and shape). To account for the particle trajectory along flow streams, the concept of equivalent stagnation length has been introduced. The concept of equivalent stagnation length may be explained in a way similar to the equivalent length used to predict local pressure loss in fittings, in that, different components geometries have different equivalent stagnation lengths. 3. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Model Methods. With these methods CFD models are used to simulate erosion generated by sand particles. Using a CFD model, sand erosion calculations are performed using flow solutions, conservation equations, turbulence models (Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot, 1960), and sand tracking (using Eulerian or Lagrangian Methods) (Lee, Tu, and Fletcher, 2002). In this paper the first and second methods are utilized to develop a computational code for sand erosion prediction in elbows and tees. 3. Implimentation of the Models A computational code for sand erosion prediction has been developed for the Salama Model and the DIM using a visual basic programming language (VB 6). These two models were selected in order to make the developed software applicable to a wide range of fluids, geometries, and materials. The Salama Model is simple, and requires fewer input data than the DIM, but it is not applicable to liquid flow because no account is taken of particle trajectory along the flow streams. In addition to its consideration of particle motion, the DIM accounts for the particle shape (angularity) and target material hardness. Therefore, combining the two models in one package allows the user to choose the suitable model according to the available data, the flow medium, and the desired output. 3.1 The Salama Model The Salama empirical correlation for multi-phase flow (Equation 4) has been employed for sand erosion prediction in elbows and tees containing a single phase, or a high gas liquid ratio two-phase flow. For the two-phase flow, the mixture density is calculated using the following equation:

3.2 The Direct Impingement Model The DIM relates the erosion rates in complex geometries such as elbows and tees to erosion rate occurring under direct (normal) impingement (Mclaury B. S., 1996). The main attribute of this model is that it takes into account particle trajectory along flow stream. This attribute makes it more suitable for liquid and low gas-oil-ratio flows than the Salama Model. The particle trajectory is obtained using an equation of particle motion based on computational fluid dynamics. The equation of particle motion can be written in differential form as follows (Mclaury B. S., 1996): dV
p

A graph relating the three dimensionless terms can be used to determine the dimensionless impact velocity from which the impact velocity can be obtained by multiplying it with the fluid velocity, i.e.

following formula (The effect of temperature on density is neglected):

Vp =

Vp Vf Vf

Re0 (T) =

(11)

V0 d pf f (T )

(15)

1 = 0.75 dx dp

f p

0.5(Vf -Vp) Vf -Vp 24 f (Vf -Vp) + Vp Vp f dp

In this work, instead of using the graphical method, equation (6) has been solved numerically to obtain the particle impact velocity. The particle impact velocity is then substituted into the following equation to predict the sand penetration rate (mass/mass), which can be converted to erosion rate (depth/time).

The viscosity at the temperature T can be calculated using Beggs and Robinson (Arnold and Stewart, 1999) correlations as follows:
9T+160 (T) =10 ( 5 ) -1 y
-1.165

(16)

(6)

where

Based on the above equation, three dimensionless terms have been proposed by the Erosion/Corrosion Research Center (ECRC), University of Tulsa to predict the impingement velocity on a tee or elbow surface (Mclaury B. S., 1996, Shirazi et al., 1995, Mclaury and Shirazi, 1999). The first term is the dimensionless impact velocity defined as the ratio of impact velocity to flow stream velocity . The second dimensionless term is the particle Reynolds number based on the flow stream velocity . The third dimensionless term is called the mass ratio defined as the ratio of the mass of fluid to the mass of particles. Prior to impingement, a particle is assumed to travel a specific distance called stagnation zone. The length of this zone, the so-called equivalent stagnation length may be determined graphically or calculated using the following equations (Mclaury B. S., 1996): For an elbow:

h = FMFSFPFr/D

WV l D2

1.73

y=103.30324-0.02023G
(T) is the viscosity (CP) at temperature T (C) G is the API gravity which is a measure of how light an oil is. An oil with API value greater than 10 is light and floats on water, whereas that whose API value less than 10 is heavier and sinks in water. API gravity can be obtained from the following correlation

(12)

where Fs, FM and Fp are empirical factors that account for sand sharpness (angularity), the material hardness, and penetration, respectively. Their values for different sand sharpness and material can be determined from tables in (Shirazi et al., 1995) and (Mclaury and Shirazi, 1999) Fr/D is a factor to account for the elbow curvature and can be obtained from the following empirical equation (Mclaury and Shirazi, 1999):

G=

141.5 -131.5 SG

0.1f0.4 0.65 r f Fr/D = exp + 0.015 f0.25 + 0.12 - Cstd 0.3 dp D

(13)

SG is the oil specific gravity. 4. Results and Discussion 4.1 The Effect of Flow Velocity The relationship between sand erosion and flow velocity has been proposed quantitatively by many investigators. For carbon steel, the relationship is in the form ER Vn where V is the particle velocity and the value of the exponent n ranges from 1 to 3. Typical proposed n values for carbon steel are 1.73 (Shirazi et al., 1995), 2.6 (Haugen et al., 1995) and 2.0 (Salama, 2000). In the Salama Modelsand, particle velocity is assumed to be identical to the fluid velocity. So the fluid velocity can be used to calculate sand erosion. In direct impingement, however, a simplified computational fluid dynamics equation is used to track the particles within the stagnation zone to acquire the exact values of the particle velocities at the target surface. Figure 1 is an example of the DIM output showing the variation of sand erosion with the velocity. The x-axis shows both fluid and impingement velocities. 4.2 The Effect of Pipe Diameter Figure 2 is an example of the DIM output showing the variation of sand erosion with internal diameter. It is clear from the figure that the erosion rate is markedly affected by the pipe diameter. The erosion rate can be mitigated by increasing the pipe diameter. This fact is emphasized by
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L 0.129 = 1-1.27 tan-1(1.01D-1.89)+ D 39.37L0 L0=0.029972m

For a tee

(7)

where r/D is the ratio of elbow curvature radius to pipe diameter. For two-phase flow, mixture density may be calculated using Equation 4 and mixture viscosity can be calculated using the following equation:

L 0.247 = 1.35-1.32 tan-1(1.01D-2.96 )+D 39.37L0 L0=0.02692m

(8)

m =

g l Xg l +(1-Xg ) g

(14)

Where, L0 is called the shape factor. The equivalent stagnation length is used to calculate the mass ratio using the following equation: where Xl and Xg are the volume fraction of liquid and gas, respectively. 3.2.1 Proposed improvement to the Direct Impingement Model: The temperature-dependence erosion rate. During production and transportation of crude oils, the rheological properties of the oil are highly affected by temperature. Since particle velocity depends on the particle Reynolds number which is a function of the fluid viscosity, the particles velocity at any temperature is proposed to be predicted based on a particle Reynolds number at that temperature. The particle Reynolds number at any temperature T can be calculated using the
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L dp

f p

(9)

m=

gVg+ lVl Vg+Vl

The particle Reynolds number is calculated using the following equation:

(5)

Re0 =

Vf d p f f

(10)

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A Computational Code for Sand Erosion Prediction in Elbows and Tees: An Improvement to the Direct Impingement Model to Account for Temperature Dependence

Figure 3, which shows the variation of erosion rate with fluid and particle impingement velocity for different pipe diameters. It is clearly shown that above a diameter of 137.5 mm, the erosion rate can be ignored and is similar to the erosion rate for a 25 mm diameter pipe. 4.3 The Effect of Sand Production Rate Both the Salama ModelModel and DIMs assume a linear proportional relationship between sand erosion and sand production rate in kg/s. In reality, the linear relationship is only valid for low sand concentration. Salama proposed a critical concentration of 500 ppm above which the linear relationship would no longer be valid and the effect of sand production rate on erosion rate would increase (1). Figure 4 shows the variation of erosion rate with sand production rate, and Figure 5 shows the variation of erosion rate with velocity for different sand flow rates. 4.4 Results of the Temperature Dependence Modification Input data in Table 2 are used to predict the particle velocity, particle Reynolds number and erosion rate for an elbow at different temperatures using the modified DIM model. The results are shown in Figures 6 to 8. Figure 8 shows a clear increase of the erosion rate with temperature. The erosion rate values, however, are very low due to the high velocity of the crude oil. 5. The Validation of the Code The code results have been compared with published measured data [Salama, 2000, Shirazi et al., 1995]. Table 3 and Figure 9 show that the predicted results by the Salama Model overestimate the selected measured data. An attempt was made to improve the accuracy of the Salama Model. Another set of data measured by Bourgoyne (Bourgoyne 1989) and Tolle and Greenwood (Tolle and Greenwood 1977) has been added to the data in Table 3. All of these data are then categorized into three groups according to the gas-liquid-ratio (GLR) as follows:  Pure gas flow at Vsl/Vsg = 0  High Gas Liquid Ratio at 0 < Vl/Vg 0.155  Low Gas Liquid Ratio at > 0.155 The Salama Model was then improved and three models were proposed. The accuracy of the three models, however, is still questionable. Good agreement has been found between the direct impingement code results and the published data as shown in Table 4 and Figure 10. This can be seen from the fitting curve equation in Figure 10. The DIM model slightly underestimates the measured data. However, its accuracy is acceptable since the predicted points are not far from the 45 straight line.

6. Conclusions A computational code has been developed for sand erosion in elbows and tees. The new attributions of this code are its applicability to a wide span of fluids type and flow conditions, its easy to use, the high calculation speed, and its ability to be installed and run on any computer regardless of the availability of the computer language used for the development. The combination of empirical and semi-empirical models used for sand erosion makes the code applicable to gas flow, multi-phase flow, and liquid flow with consideration of all parameters believed to affect erosion rates. The Direct Impingement Model used to develop the code has been improved to account for temperature effects on particles velocity and erosion rate for crude oils. By comparing the two models with measured data, it was found that the Salama Model overestimated the erosion rate, whereas the Direct Impingement Model agrees reasonably well with the measured data. References [1] A  PI RP 14 E, 1991. Recommended Practice for Design and Installation of Offshore Production Platform Piping Systems, American Petroleum Institute, Washington DC. [2] A  rnold K. and Stewart, M.1999. Surface Production Operations, Second Edition, Volume 1, USA, Gulf Publishing Company, Huston, Texas [3] B  arton, N A, 2003. Erosion in Elbows in hydrocarbon production systems: Review document, TUN NEL Limited, Health and Safety Executive, UK, Research Report 115. [4] B  ird R B, Stewart W E and Lightfoot E N, 1960. Transport Phenomena, New York, John Wiley and Sons. [5] B  ourgoyne, A. 1989. Experimental study of erosion in divertor systems due to sand production. Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE)/AIDC Drilling Conference, 28 February-3 March 1989, New Orleans, Louisiana, Paper No. 18716. [6] F  ajaer, Erling et al., 1992. Petroleum-Related Rock Mechanics. Elsevier Science. [7] H  augen, K., Kvernvold, O., Ronold, A., and Sandberg, R., 1995. Sand Erosion of Wear Resistant Materials: Erosion in Choke Valves, Wear, Vol. 186-187, pp. 179188,. [8] L  ee B.E., Tu J.Y., and Fletcher C.A.J., 2002. On numerical modeling of particlewall impaction in relation to erosion prediction: Eulerian versus Lagrangian method, Wear 252, pp. 179-188 [9] M  alka, Ramakrishna., 2005. Erosion Corrosion and Synergic Effects in Disturbed liquid Particle Flow. M Sc. Thesis, University of Ohio.

[10]  Mclaury, B. S., 1996. Predicting Solid Particle Erosion Resulting from Turbulent Fluctuations in Oilfield Geometries. PhD Thesis, U of Tulsa. [11]  Mclaury, B. S. and Shirazi S. A., 1999. Generalization of API RP 14E for Erosive Service in Multiphase Production, No. 56812, SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, 3-6 October 1999, Houston, Texas [12]  Oyeneyin, M.B., Peden, J.M., Hossieni, Ali, , Ren, G., 1995. Factors to Consider in the Effective Management and ControI of Fines Migration in High Permeability Sands, Society of Petroleum Engineer (SPE) No. 30112, SPE European Formation Damage Conference, 15-16 May 1995, The Hague, Netherlands [13]  Salama, M. M. , 2000. Influence of Sand Production on Design and Operations of Piping Systems. Ponca City, Oklahoma : No. 00080, CORROSION 2000, March 26 - 31, 2000 , Orlando, Fl, NACE International. [14]  Salama, M. M., 2000, An Alternative to API 14E Erosional Velocity Limits for Sand-Laden Fluids. ASME, Journal of Energy Resources Technology Vol. 122, pp. 71-77.

[15]  Salama, M. M. and Venkatesh, E. S, 1983. Evaluation of Erosional Velocity Limitations in Offshore Gas Wells. p. 4485, 15th annual Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas. [14]  Shirazi, S. A. , Mclaury, B. S., Shadley J. R., Rybik E. F., 1995.Generalization of the API RP 74E Guideline for Erosive, Journal of Petroleum Technology, Volume 47, Number 8. [15]  Tolle, G. C. and D. R. Greenwood 1977. Design of fittings to reduce wear caused by sand erosion, Texas A & M research foundation [16]  Tronvoll J., Dusseault M. B., Sanfilippo F., Santarelli F. J., 2001. The tools of sand management. SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, 30 September- 3 October 2001, New Orleans, Louisiana, Society of Petroleum Engineers No. 71673.

Geometry Sm

Elbow (1.5 and 5D) 5.5

Seamless and cast elbows (1.5 to 3.25 D) 33

Plugged tee (gas-liquid) 68

Plugged tee (gas flow) 1379

Table 1: The geometry-dependant constant in Salama Model

Parameter Sand production rate Fluid velocity Fluid density Pipe diameter Particle size Sand density
Table 2: The input data of temperature-dependence erosion rate

Unit Kg/s m/s Kg/m mm Micron (10 m)

-6 3

Value 0.000886 20 800 50.8 300 2650

3

Kg/m

Vl m/s 1 5.8 6.2 0.5 0.7

Vg m/s 30 20 9 34.3 52

m kg/m3
34.48 226.59 413.5 24.1 23

d sand micron 150 150 250 250 250

D pipe mm 49 49 26.5 26.5 26.5

Bend radius *Dpipe 5 1.5 5 5 5

ER measured mm/kg 5.52E-04 5.19E-05 1.8E-04 7.2E-03 1.33E-02

ER predicted 8.83E-04 9.16E-05 9.93-05 8.98E-03 2.15E-02

Table 3: The validation of the code results (Salama Model) using published data

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A Computational Code for Sand Erosion Prediction in Elbows and Tees: An Improvement to the Direct Impingement Model to Account for Temperature Dependence

Erosion Rate mm/year

24.4 9.14 12.2 15.24 18.29 21.34 27.44 30.49 21.34

0.000886 0.0008801 0.000881 0.000875 0.0008797 0.000878 0.000886 0.000881 0.0194

1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015 1.2015

0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182 0.0000182

300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 300

50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8 50.8

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

angular angular angular angular angular angular angular angular angular

109 109 109 109 109 109 109 109 109

452.1708 59.182 105.664 207.264 253.746 337.82 502.92 566.42 2717.8

374.523 68.8848 113.64 165.862 229.006 297.917 466.954 557.174 6503.97

20000 15000 10000 5000 0

0.002661 0.003547 0.004434 0.005321 0.006208 0.007095 0.007982 0.008869 0.009755

Calculated erosion rate mm/kg

V m/s Sand rate kg/s

m kg/m

f pa.s

25000

0.000887 0.001774

2.50E-02 2.00E-02 1.50E-02 1.00E-02 5.00E-03

y = 1.567x - 0.000 R2 = 0.985

dp micron D mm Bend radius

Sand shape

Brinnel No. ER meas. mm/yr Er pr. mm/yr

y = x R2 = 1

0.00E+00 0.00E+00 2.00E-03 4.00E-03 6.00E-03 8.00E-03 1.00E-02 1.20E-02 1.40E-02 Measure erosion rate mm/kg

10

20

30

40

50

-5.00E-03

Flow Velocity m/s

0.010642

Figure 9: Validation of Salama Model.

600 Calculated erosion rate mm/kg 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
y = 0.915x R2 = 0.979 y = x R2 = 1

Figure 5: The variation of erosion rate with fluid velocity at different sand production rates.

7000 Particles Reynolds No 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 0

Table 4: The validation of the code results (Direct Impingement model) using published data.
Erosion Rate (mm/year) vs Impingement Velocity (m/s) Erosion Rate (mm/year) - Fluid (Impingement) Velocity (m/s) - Diameter (mm)

Fluid Velocity = 20 m/s Dia. = 50.8 mm Fluid Density = 800 kg/m3 Particles size = 300 micron Sand prod rate = 0.00886 kg/s

Sand Erosion Rate rate mm/year

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Density = 1.2015 Kg/m Viscosity = 0.0182 CP Sand Rate 0.000886 Kg/s Sand size 0.0003 m Diameter 0.0508 m Sand Density 2650 Kg/m3
3

1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Sand Erosion Rate rate mm/year

1400

1400

600 500

600 500 400 300 200 100

250 227.5 205 182.5 160 137.5 115 92.5 70 47.5 25

400 300 200 100 1 (0) 5.9 (5.8066) 10.8 (10.6586) 15.7 (15.5105) 20.6 (20.3625) 25.5 (25.2145) 30.4 (30.0664) 35.3 (34.9184) 40.2 (39.7703) 45.1 (44.62230 50 (49.4743) 0

20

40 60 Temperature C

80

100

Measure erosion rate mm/kg

Figure 6: The variation of particle Reynolds number with temperature.

Figure 10: Validation of Direct Impingement Model.

4.8 (4.88)

9.63 (9.76)

14.46 (14.64)

19.29 (19.52)

28.96 (29.28)

33.79 (34.16)

38.62 (39.04)

43.45 (43.92)

24.13 (24.4)

48.29 (48.8)

Impingement (Fluid) Velocity m/s

Fluid (Impingement) Velocity m/s

Figure 1: The variation of erosion rate (mm/year) with velocity (m/s)

Figure 3: The variation of erosion rate (mm/year) with velocity (m/s) for different diameters (mm)

Erosion Rate vs Diameter, The Impingement Velocity = 24.1252401605783m/s

1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

Impingement Velocity m/s

Fluid Velocity = 20 m/s Dia. = 50.8 mm Fluid Density = 800 kg/m3 Particles size = 300 micron Sand prod rate = 0.00886 kg/s

20

Sand Erosion Rate rate mm/year

1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

Erosion Rate mm/year

600 400 200 115 137.5 160 182.5 205 227.5 47.5 92.5 250 25 70 0

8000 6000 4000 2000 0 0 0.005 0.01 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04

Erosion Rate mm/year

Density = 1.2015 Kg/m3 Viscosity = 0.0182 CP Sand Rate 0.000886 Kg/s Sand size 0.0003 m Flow Velocity 24.4 m/s Sand Density 2650 Kg/m3

1600 1400 1200 1000 800

16000 14000 12000 10000 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0

40 60 Temperature C

80

100

Figure 7: The variation of particle velocity with temperature.

Fluid Velocity = 20 m/s Dia. = 50.8 mm Fluid Density = 800 kg/m3 Particles size = 300 micron Sand prod rate = 0.00886 kg/s

Pipe Diameter mm

Figure 2: The variation of erosion rate (mil/year) with diameter

Sand Production Rate Kg/s

20

Figure 4: The variation of erosion rate with sand production rates

40 60 Temperature C

80

100

Figure 8: The variation of erosion rate with temperature.

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