Erosion modeling in parallel gate valve

Abstract

Gate valves, which are widely used in oil production and transportation processes, can be eroded by high fluid pressures and sand particles contained in crude oil during operation. This erosion can result in loss of valve thickness and shutdown of the operating system. Erosion is not uniform on valve elements, and it is different depending on the stages of opening the valve. In this paper, flow analysis and erosion rate analysis for the fluid flowing through the valve in different stages of opening were performed by using ANSYS Fluent 19.2. The gate valve model was designed by using AutoCAD, and the geometric dimensions and physical properties of the material required for modeling were determined according to the specifications of the gate valve installed in the oil pipeline. By the Reynolds calculation, it was disclosed that the fluid which flows in the valve has the characteristic of turbulent flow, and based on this calculation, the inlet length of the valve was determined. For the CFD analysis, the Euler method and the method of Lagrange were used. Using the k - e and DPM models according to the fluid characteristics of the turbulent flow, it was predicted the erosion rates of the surface generated by the sand which is the solid phase dispersed in the multiphase fluid. In addition, based on the von Mises method and the pressure distribution, data obtained by fluid analysis, the process of calculating the stress on the closing elements was presented. The fluid used in the analysis was petroleum with sand particles.

Keywords

• parallel gate valve
• erosion
• turbulent
• meshing
• polyphase
• sand