Numerical Study on Erosion of a Pipe Bend with a Vortex Chamber

AbstractAbrasive erosion at bend is a common issue in gas-solid pneumatic system. Vortex chamber design is one of specialized designs that offers promising prospect at reducing erosion. The performance of design is still relatively unknown in the literature. The aim of this work is to study the effect of basic erosion variables such as the flow Reynolds number, the particle Stoke number, and the vortex chamber size. The results show that the vortex chamber always reduces the erosion in comparison to the common radius bend, and it is more effective at higher Reynolds number. Increases the chamber size reduces the erosion but the most significantly reduction happens when the chamber size to the pipe diameter ratio is increased from 1 to 1.25. The chamber size influences the erosion differently at different Reynolds number. Trends describing these effects were obtained via trial and error approach. The particle Stoke number has non-unique effect on erosion. Increasing Stoke number via increasing Re increases...