Abstract
In the present work, gas-sand erosion experiments selected from the literature are repeated to study data validation. A standard 3-inch (76.2 mm) stainless steel elbow with a bend radius to pipe diameter ratio (r/D) equal to 1.5 is used. Wall thickness loss is measured using fixed-mounted Ultrasonic Transducers (UT) at 6 different locations on the outer wall of the investigated elbow. The flow conditions are gas-sand with 15, 23, and 31 m/s gas velocities and 75 and 300-μm sand particle sizes. A statistical approach of 99 percent confidence interval is utilized to find and remove the outliers in the data sets. Upper and lower bounds of erosion are presented to visualize the confidence of erosion data around the average profile. Moreover, additional experimental cases are studied to expand the range of data. These experimental conditions include 39 and 47 m/s gas velocities with 75 and 300-μm sand particle sizes. In the next step, the erosion data variance is calculated at different angles on the outer wall of the elbows before and after applying the uncertainty analysis. It is seen that by applying the uncertainty analysis, the variance of the experimental erosion values is reduced by a range of 20 to 99 %. The experimental erosion profiles along the outer wall of the elbow are compared with erosion profiles obtained from CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) performed for similar conditions. CFD contours of erosion are in agreement with the average erosion profile obtained from the experimental data.
