Evaluation of Solid Particle Erosion Equations and Models for Oil and Gas Industry Applications

Abstract

Abstract The goal of this work is to provide an evaluation of the uncertainties in the calculation and measurement of erosion caused by solid particles that are entrained in the produced fluids in the oil and gas industry. Erosive damage is of great importance in production and transportation facilities, and it has been studied widely utilizing experiments or modeling approaches. The experimental setup used by researchers and uncertainty in determining the particle impact condition were key factors in the erosion measurement results and corresponding derived models. The effect of these parameters is studied in this work, and a guideline is provided to address the resulting error. In order to address the effect of particle velocity on erosion, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is used and velocity distribution is obtained. The effect of particle velocity is analyzed in both experiments and erosion models. The erosion calculations by Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and Erosion/Corrosion Research Center (E/CRC) models have been compared to experimental data collected at the University of Tulsa and available data in the literature. A semi-mechanistic erosion equation which has been developed for some alloys that are being used extensively in the oil and gas industry is implemented in the CFD simulations. Based on the power-law dependency of erosion models on particle impact velocity, it is shown that uncertainty in the determination of particle velocity is propagating to the measured material losses in the experiments or in the predicted values in the erosion models. The erosion model predictions showed general agreement with experimental data in the literature for a wide range of conditions, but over predictions and under predictions have been observed which are due to the uncertainty in the measurements or erosion modeling.