Erosion can be caused by the repeated impact of solid particles on tubings and pipelines.

To
avoid this we attempt to estimate the velocity at which erosion will occur. Normal practise
is to use equation of API 14 E. This can be unreliable especially for clean production where
the limiting value of C (125) can be too restrictive. In practice, values of 1000 for C have
been recorded in pipes where no erosion has been detected

In PROSPER, we calculate and display the C value and it is the responsibility of the User to
work out whether for this C value, erosion will occur or not depending upon the expected
operating conditions. An interesting paper that deals with the subject is:

"Criteria for Sizing Multiphase Flowlines for Erosive/Corrosive Service" by S.J. Svedeman
- SPE Paper 26569.

The debate regarding the erosional velocity is still big concern; many investigators
reviewed the velocity limits specified in the RP 14E and concluded that the limits are too
conservative

Some investigators define the use the C value as follows:

 C=100 for continuous service

 C=125 for intermittent service
 C=150-200 in cases where corrosion is controlled by inhibitors

In cases where sand is present even at very low velocities erosion will be a problem and
there are no guidelines on the amount of reduction to the calculated velocity in this cases.

Some times, limiting the velocity in flowlines to a unnecessarily low value will result in
costly oversized flowlines

Other investigators calculated that the velocity that would produce liquid impingement
erosion corresponds to C=300.
Other cases, for example the erosional velocity limits for water injection system correspond
to values of C=450 with out any solid and non corrosive conditions but when corrosion is
present this value can be reduced to C=250 depending on the corrosive condition

It is precisely because a variety of different erosion / corrosion applications defined by

different investigators that PROSPER only displays the C factor and we leave it to the
user to work out, based on different criteria, whether erosion will occur or not depending
certain operating conditions.

New erosional velocity calculations for sand landen fluids

A ConocoPhillips paper (An Alternative to API14E Erosional Velocity Limits for Sand
Laden Fluids - ASME Transaction - Energy Resources Technology Journal) challenges
API14E on the basis that it can be very conservative for clean service and is not applicable
for conditions where corrosion or sand are present. It proposes a simple alternative
approach that has been verified by a comparison with several multi-phase flow loop tests
that cover a broad range of liquid-gas ratios and sand concentrations. Values of S for
different components are proposed in the paper