Erosion – Corrosion in turbulent, two-phase liquid/particle flow with recirculation, after a sudden pipe expansion is studied by the application of a numerical flow model along with different erosion models. The flow model which is based on a two-phase flow version of a standard two-equation model of turbulence and a stochastic simulation of particle-fluid turbulence interactions, is capable of successfully predicting local values of time average fluid velocities and turbulent fluctuations, as well as predicting particle dispersion and particle-wall interaction. The erosion models used are that of Finnie (1960) and a modified version suggested by Bergevin (1984).
The agreement of the predicted and measured hydrodynamics parameters, for flow through a sudden expansion, was satisfactory. Predictions of erosion rates using Bergevin’s modified model were in good agreement with the stainless steel erosion measurements for a 2% water/sand slurry. The erosion-corrosion model was successful in predicting the overall pattern and rates of metal loss for carbon steel.