Numerical Investigation of Erosion in Various Oil-Pipeline Layouts Using a Discrete-Phase Model

The flow dynamics in pipes is a very complex system because it is 
significantly influenced by the flow conditions. The transportation of 
crude oil in pipelines within unconfined petroleum reservoirs is 
associated with the presence of solid particles. These particles are often 
transported as dispersed phases during crude oil production and are 
therefore detrimental to the integrity of the pipe surface. This could 
lead to the occurrence of crevice corrosion due to pipe erosion. Related 
to the above discussion, this project aims to analyze crude oil dynamics 
during flow through the pipeline and identify erosion hotspots for 
different pipe bends. Therefore, the present work numerically 
illustrated the effect of turbulent crude oil flow in different pipe 
configurations on the erosion rate. A computational fluid dynamics 
(CFD) model combined with a discrete phase model (DPM) was 
employed in this study using ANSYS (2020R1). In the current study, 
four different angles were considered to represent oil pipe 
configurations. These angles are 45 °, 90 o, 135 °, and 180 o. The four 
pipe designs were named Case_1_(45o), Case_2_(90o), Case_3_(135o) 
and Case_4_(180o). Further, the effect of inlet velocity was studied 
from 20 m/s to 35 m/s. Results stated that among the examined cases, 
the Case_1_(45o) was the most erosion-prone case, while the 
Case_2_(90o) provided the best erosion resistance. At 35 m/s, the 
erosion rate of the Case_1_(45o) was about 24% higher than that of the 
Case_2_(90o), highlighting the strong influence of bend angle on 
pipeline wear.