Study of Impact Erosion of Oil and Gas Flowlines with Micro-sized Sand Particles

Abstract

The oil and gas produced from the reservoirs of relatively low formation strength inevitably carry micro-sized sand particles, which adversely influence the flow-lines and other installations. The financial deliberations favor the choice of low-cost metals, in general, carbon steel as a flow-line material. Yet, there are many cases where carbon steel been substituted with a low-cost stainless steel. The corrosion resistance of the stainless-steel is well accepted. However, there is another type of deformation that is not well studied and understood is its erosion resistance. The objective of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the erosion of stainless steel placed in a dry sand stream of micro-size particles. The manipulated variables were sand size, impingement angle, gas flow velocity, and nozzle distance. The obtained results showed that the large particle size, high fluid-flow velocity and short nozzle distance would result in more severe erosion of the stainless-steel coupons.

A Review on Contact and Collision Methods for Multi-Body Hydrodynamic Problems in Complex Flows

“…In virus-induced cellular infection dynamics, virus (biotic particles) adsorption is associated with the frequency of their collisions with the cell surface, which is controlled by the nature of the cell, virus, and the ionic environment [22]. In energy sectors, sand erosion is a critical concern that can hamper the economic flow of hydrocarbon streams in oil and gas production from a reservoir of low formation strength [23,24,25]. Sand erosion, caused by the collision of fine sand particles (abiotic particles) with inner pipeline surfaces in oil and gas pipelines, often results in localized corrosion, material loss, failure in pipeline structural integrity, and production shutdown.…”