Assessment of optimum slurry pipe design for minimum erosion

Particulate erosion is a major concern in slurry handling unit of a thermal power plant. The pipe bends are the most erosion affected element of a pipeline unit thus, a cost-effective method to reduce pipeline erosion is highly desirable. This work aims to suggest the optimal pipe bend design to minimize the particulate erosion by analyzing the erosion wear in geometrically different pipe bends for bottom ash slurry flow by using Computational Fluid Dynamics code FLUENT. A Three-dimensional simulation study of erosion wear is carried out by implementing Euler-Lagrange modeling along with the standard k-ε turbulence model to solve the complex multi-phase flow. Pipe bends of different bending angle (30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°), diameter (50 to 250 mm) and bending ratio (r/D = 1 to 2.5) are evaluated at different flow condition. The wear location gets shifted to the upper section of the bend and its magnitude is significantly reduced with the increase in pipe diameter and bending angle. The dynamics of multiphase slurry through different bends is analyzed to understand the complex wear phenomenon. The simulation result shows good agreement with the published findings. Finally, a least erosion affected pipe bend profile is suggested for slurry transport unit.