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Experimental and Numerical Simulation Analyses of Elbow Erosion in Surface Process of Deepwater Gas Well Testing

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Abstract

The gas production of offshore gas well testing is generally large, and sand production is inevitable, which will cause erosion risk of testing pipeline. In this research, surface process structure in deepwater gas well testing has been analyzed and the potential risk points of the process have been pointed out. According to the analysis results of elbow structure characteristics in potential risk points, material properties, natural gas production, solid phase change law, and material sampling of field elbow in testing surface process, combined with modified erosion testing system, the erosion of samples with different erosion times, erosion angles, fluid velocities and particle concentrations were studied. The results showed that the erosion number of particles on pipe samples was larger in the first 2 h. The erosion number of samples was rapidly increased with the increase in fluid velocity and sand concentration. When the angle between particle movement direction and sample wall plane was about 30°, erosion amount reached its maximum value. Impact forces between particles and solid materials change in vertical and horizontal components, affecting the morphology of erosion pits. Based on erosion experiment results and considering fluid flow theory, sand movement theory and OKA erosion model, numerical simulations of elbow erosion under different fluid velocities, particle concentrations and particle sizes were carried out and the erosion law of elbow was further explained.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project of China under Grant No. 2016ZX05038-002-LH001, the Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (Youth Project, China) under Grant No. 2021CFB180 and the Open Fund of State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation(Southwest Petroleum University) under Grant PLN2022-16. We would also like to thank SJ Petroleum Machinery Co. of SINOPEC, who is the industrial sponsor to support the project and the relevant experiments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Yangtze University, **gzhou, Hubei, China

    Qiao-Lei Sun, Le **a, Long Deng, Jian-Gang Wang, Gao-Lei Wang & Ding Feng

  2. Hubei Engineering Research Center for Oil and Gas Drilling and Completion Tools, **gzhou, Hubei, China

    Qiao-Lei Sun, Jian-Gang Wang & Ding Feng

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  1. Qiao-Lei Sun
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Contributions

SQ contributed to conceptualization, methodology, validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, investigation, visualization, project administration, and funding acquisition. XL helped in investigation, writing—original draft, and software. DL helped in writing—original draft, visualization, and software. WJ done validation, conceptualization, visualization, and software. WG done investigation, and software. FD contributed to methodology, investigation, and project administration.

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Correspondence to Qiao-Lei Sun or Ding Feng.

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Sun, QL., **a, L., Deng, L. et al. Experimental and Numerical Simulation Analyses of Elbow Erosion in Surface Process of Deepwater Gas Well Testing. J Fail. Anal. and Preven. 24, 202–215 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-023-01807-4

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