Three-dimensional numerical analysis of turbulent flow in curved piping systems susceptible to flow-accelerated corrosion

The three-dimensional turbulent flow in a curved pipe susceptible to flow-accelerated corrosion has been analyzed numerically to predict the pressure and shear stress distributions on the inner surface of pipe wall. The analysis employs the body-fitted non-orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system and a standard κ-ε turbulence model with wall function method. The finite volume method is used to discretize the governing equations. The convection term is approximated by a high-resolution and bounded discretization scheme. The cell-centered, non-staggered grid arrangement is adopted and the resulting checkerboard pressure oscillation is prevented by applying a modified version of momentum interpolation scheme. The SIMPLE algorithm is employed for the pressure and velocity coupling. The numerical calculations have been performed for two curved pipes with different bend angles and curvature radii, and discussions have been made on the distributions of the primary and secondary flow velocities, pressure and shear stress on the inner surface of pipe wall to examine applicability of the present analysis method. As the result, it is seen that the method is effective to predict the susceptible systems or their local areas where the fluid velocity or local turbulence is so high that the structural integrity can be threatened by wall thinning degradation due to flow-accelerated corrosion. (author)