Predicting initial erosion during the hole erosion test by using turbulent flow CFD simulation

CFD simulation with enhanced modeling of turbulence and near-wall treatment is used to model water–clay mixtures flowing through a cylindrical pipe domain. Effects on the wall-shear stress resulting from varying water clay content and applied hydraulic gradient are analyzed. Various parametric studies were performed and had shown that the two-dimensional modelling introduced in the present study does not yield a uniform wall-shear stress along the pipe wall and that clay concentration affects significantly the wall-shear stress value. This is in contrast with the common hypothesis used in one-dimensional modeling approaches where this stress is assumed constant and which gives rise to uniform erosion along the pipe wall. The obtained results had enabled predicting more realistically erosion amount and had allowed for understanding the irregular eroded hole wall shape as observed experimentally after performing the standard hole erosion test.