CFD STUDY OF SAND EROSION IN PIPELINE USING DIFFERENT PERCENTAGE OF ETHYLENE GLYCOL AND DEIONIZED WATER

Sand productions are inclusive of various types of major key challenges for gas and oil productions as the sand managements are rapidly growing in becoming significant to manage wells of high rates. Since approximately 70% of gas as well oil reserves around the globe are sand formations Sand production is an unavoidable byproduct in oil and gas industry as 70% gas and oil reserves of the world oil are sand formation. Transportation of the particles from the wellbore to the surface will cause the damage to the amenities and tools. Wells producing gas and oils can potentially fail because of the erosion of the major solid particles. It can be illustrated through an example like producing wells having considerable amount of production of sand might affect negatively over the fitting and components of the pipeline, well tubing as well as the equipment used for the production. Thus can cause highly priced potential ecofriendly damages, equipment loss and downtime production. The current study provides outcomes gathered through examining and analyzing various factors for determining the severities and amount of the erosion of sand over the pipe bend. To solve the phenomena of the flow of the fluid, this study has used CFD. To design the pipe's elbow, CATIA-V5 is brought in use and meshing is done with the help of the ANSYS. Different cases will be studied here by varying the percentage of water and EG with respect to sand particle size 160m and 370m. Erosion rate, Skin friction Coefficient and Swirl velocity are the three major effects which will be studied further. Through the observation of the study, it can be said that material's character and flow velocity are the predominant factors which might affect the rate of sand erosion within the pipelines. The observation is made over every factor and is also analyzed.