Multi-fluid approach for the numerical prediction of wall erosion in an elbow

International audience; Multiphase pipelineflows are widely used in the oil and gas industry to transport solid-liquid or gas-solid mix-tures. Erosion caused by the impact of solid particles is a major challenge for equipment maintenance and safety,especially in complex geometries such as elbows. In this work, a CFD study on wall erosion in a 90° standardelbow has been performed using a multi-fluid approach, also called Euler/Euler, for poly-dispersedfluid-particleflows. A model is used for the erosion prediction taking into account particle turbulent kinetic energy obtainedfrom the Euler-Euler approach. A good agreement with experiments is observed. The effects of wall roughnessand solid massflow rate on the erosion rate are also investigated. For a certain amount of sand passing throughthe pipe elbow, there exists a solid massflow rate for which the particle impact damage is most dramatic.