Experimental Research of Sand Erosion in Gas Dominant Flows

摘要

Sand produced from reservoirs during oil and gas production can remove corrosion inhibitors or passive layers of corrosion resistant alloys and cause erosion-corrosion damage to pipelines and equipment, which can lead to production shutdown and significant economic losses. Gas dominant flows are common flow patterns in gas production, and a firm understanding of sand erosion in these flow conditions is vital to ensure continuous production. Additionally, to predict solid particle erosion for these flow conditions, it is vital to have experimental data that is needed to validate and improve models that are being constructed. Therefore, experiments were conducted on a large scale multiphase 3-inch and 4-inch flow loop utilizing Electrical Resistance (ER) erosion probes to evaluate the effects of superficial gas and liquid velocity, pipe size, flow orientation and sand particle distribution on erosion. It is demonstrated that the placement location of these probes is very important to determine the amount of erosion.1 The experimental results indicate that the ER probes, when properly placed in the flow loop, can provide valuable data to examine effects of many variables on sand erosion. The data indicates that for a fixed gas velocity, the erosion measured by ER probes decreases substantially as small amounts of liquid are injected into the gas stream. Additionally, the entrainment of liquid droplets within the gas stream can significantly affect erosion results.