Protection of Bend from Erosion Caused by Gas- Particle Flows in Town Border Station

Abstract

One of the problems may be occurred in the Town Border Station (TBS) for reducing of natural gas pressure is a serious damage which follows the bends. In this paper the bend erosion by gas-particle flows is investigated. The process is simulated using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and solved by k-? model. The particles momentum can easily transfer to surface of the bend and it increases the rate of erosion by disorder in pressure distribution and gas high velocity. For protecting bend form erosion a novel method is proposed. A multistage diffuser is installed before the bend, which influence on gas momentum and spread the velocity profile in pipe. Additionally, this process produces local turbulence, which helps erosion to drop. Overall results show the proposed method can notably reduce the rate of erosion until 51% and may be used as a procedure to reduce erosion in units where the gas pressure drop is their major duty, such as TBS.