Solid particle erosion in piping systems is a serious concern of integrity management in the oil and gas production, which has been widely predicted by the numerical simulation method. In the present work, every step of the comprehensive procedure is verified when applied to predicting the bend erosion for gas flow, and improvements are made by comparing different computational models. Firstly, five turbulent models are implemented to model the flow field in a 90 degree bend for gas flow and examined by the static pressure and velocity profile measured in experiments. Secondly, the particle velocities calculated by fully coupling and one-way coupling are compared with experimental data. Finally, based on the knowledge of flow modeling and particle tracking, four classic erosion equations are introduced to calculate the penetration rates in a 90 degree bend. By comparing with the experimental data available in the literature, it indicates that the k–ε model is the most accurate and effective turbulent model for gas pipe flow; the fully coupling makes the simulation of particle motion closer to measured data; and the Grant and Tabakoff equation presents better performance than other equations.
Numerical simulation of predicting and reducing solid particle erosion of solid-liquid two-phase flow in a choke