In this work, the erosion in the four-way pipe of the heavy oil thermal production were studied by CFD simulations. The Euler-Largrangian gas-solid two phase flow model coupled with the erosion model which modified by the experiment was used in the CFD simulations. First, the simulation results were compared with the actual invalidation case, through which the validity of the model is proved. Then, the effects of wether the pit defect located in the erodible site or not, fluid velocity, particle diameter and mass flow rate on the erosion rate were investigated using the CFD model. The erosion rate would increase with the fluid velocity, mass flow rate. With the increase of fluid velocity from 5m/s to 25m/s, the maximum erosion rate of the four-way tube increased by 16.947 times. When the mass flow rate increased from 0.15kg/(m2•s) to 2.4kg/(m2•s), the maximum erosion rate increased by 16.584 times. When the particle size increased from 0.05mm to 0.2mm, the maximum erosion rate of the four-way tube decreased by 2.183 times, while when the particle size increased from 0.2mm to 0.4mm, the maximum erosion rate of the four-way tube increased by 1.382 times. And the results show that if the pit defect is not located in the erodible site, there will be little effects on the erosion rate of the four-way pipe. However, if the pit defect located in the erodible site coincidentally, the erosion rate will increase sharply, maybe several times, which may cause failure risk of the four-way pipe increase.

The CFD Analysis of Erosion in the Four-Way Pipe of the Heavy Oil Thermal Production Wellhead

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/PVP/PVP2021/volume/85314

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