Prediction of Sand Erosion in Elbows and Tees Using Direct Impingement Model

When sand is produced from a bay zone in a petroleum field, sand control or sand management techniques are
normally applied to avoid the subsequent problems of sand production. In the former, sand production is
minimized to the least level, whereas in the later sand is allowed to be produced but the flow characteristics are
managed to avoid the consequences. Erosion of subsurface and surface components is the most important
consequence of sand production. When sand management technique is applied, sand erosion needs to be predicted
at different conditions to set the limits of the process operation parameters. Many models were proposed for sand
erosion prediction but the applicability of any model subjects to specific constraints. For example some models
assume that the particle velocity is identical as fluid velocity. These models can only be applicable to gas flow or
high gas-liquid ratio two phase flow but are not applicable for liquid flow.
The direct impingement model is a mechanistic model developed by Erosion/Corrosion research center (E/CRC)
in University of Tulsa to predict the penetration rate of direct impingement of elbows and tees after determining the
direct impact velocity using a CFD-based equation of particles motion. The main attributions of the direct
impingement model are its simplicity, its accounts to the sand trajectories along flow path, and its accounts to sand
shapes and substrate materials.
In this work, a friendly user-interface computational code has been developed using the direct impingement model
and the results of the code have been validated using published measured data. It has been found that, the code
results highly agree with the measured data.