Erosion coupled dynamic mesh analysis for location of maximum erosion in 90-degree bends for gas-solid flows

The progressive change in the surface geometry of the component due to erosive wear affects the correct estimation of erosive wear performance and service life of the components handling particulate flows. The current study focuses on determining the change in the location of higher erosion on the bend surface during the pneumatic conveying of solids with continuous geometric modification due to erosive wear. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) based erosion-coupled dynamic mesh methodology is adopted to simulate the time-dependent surface modification of the 90° bend geometry due to erosive wear. Available experimental data are used to validate the numerical results. Further, the erosion distribution and the location of the maximum erosion for different flow velocities, particle sizes, and bend radius ratios with the increase in solid throughput are investigated. It has been found that the modification in the bend geometry due to erosion influences the location of the maximum erosion. The increase in thickness loss due to erosion increases the variation in the location of the maximum erosion. Furthermore, an equation for predicting the location of maximum erosion of bend geometry is obtained based on the bend radius ratio and the thickness loss.