A general numerical method for solid particle erosion in gas-liquid two-phase flow pipelines

A general numerical method is developed to analyse solid particle erosion in gas-liquid mixed pipeline. Tracking particle trajectories is an important intermediate step of the numerical procedure. The present numerical method considers that two factors can affect a particle's trajectory. First, a particle is randomly affected by the gas or liquid phase, and the probability of a certain phase acting is equal to the volume fraction of the phase. Second, surface tension prevents particles from entering the gas phase from the liquid phase and promotes the particles entering the liquid phase from the gas phase. The numerical procedure is well verified by comparison with the experimental data available in the literature. Seventeen cases are used to validate the predicted multiphase flow field and solid particle erosion. In addition, the movement and distribution of particles predicted by the present model are indirectly verified, and the effects of the phase volume fraction and surface tension are discussed in detail.

Automated summary

A general numerical method is developed to analyze solid particle erosion in gas-liquid mixed pipeline. Particle trajectories are tracked as an important intermediate step. The method considers the random effects of gas and liquid phases on particle trajectories, as well as the influence of surface tension. The numerical procedure is verified by comparison with experimental data and the effects of phase volume fraction and surface tension are discussed.