Experimental Study and Numerical Simulation of Erosion Wear on High-Pressure Pipe and Tee

Abstract

The fracturing fluid with solid particles in the process of high-speed injects to high pressure pipe manifolds will cause serious erosion damage, lead to serious material loss and equipment failure. In this paper, experimental study on the main factors affecting erosion rate of alloy steel materials for high-pressure pipe and tee as impact angles and impact velocity by new erosive wear test machine. The erosion rate model was established based on the erosion theory and the results of erosion experiment. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis has been used to predict erosion behavior in high pressure pipe and tee geometries that are highly susceptible to erosion in the process of fracturing operation. With standard k-e turbulence, discrete phase and erosion model, the erosion wear rate on the inner wall and velocity characteristic in straight pipe and tee were obtained. The results show that downstream triplet and dorsal competent near branch place are easy to wear. The study is expected to provide reference for high-pressure pipeline defect detecting and optimization design.