Solid particle erosion is one of the key issues affecting operational reliability, safety and cost of tools and equipment in the oil and gas industry. Predicting accurate erosion rate is critical for safe and reliable operations while maximizing output efficiency. The extent to which erosion occurs depends on many factors such as flow conditions, fluid properties, wall material, and particle properties. As a result, it is difficult to investigate the effects of all these factors using experimental methods alone. CFD modeling of erosion has gained significant traction over the last decade. CFD is a powerful tool to model erosion patterns in geometrically complex flow domains. The large amount of details with in-depth insights and the high degree of flexibility provided by CFD analysis makes it also an ideal tool for design optimization, de-bottlenecking, optimizing production limits and failure investigation.

Erosion CFD modeling is a complex process, in addition to accurate solution of flow and turbulence field, a proper treatment of fluid-particle interaction is important for the accuracy of the erosion rate prediction. There are several parameters that need to be considered when using CFD to predict solid particle erosion. Though these CFD analyses are typically carried out through use of recognized CFD software in combination with hardware, there are no consistent practices and erosion predictions can vary significantly between different CFD practitioners. There is a consensus among the growing number of CFD practitioners that a joint effort is needed to have a consolidated practice for CFD erosion modeling to accelerate industry’s acceptance of CFD as an engineering tool. This will ensure industry provides consistent and accurate erosion CFD predictions. The aim of the workshop is to address best practices and get a broader consensus on minimum standards for CFD methodology, and to foster discussions in formulating industry accepted CFD erosion modelling guidelines. This workshop will be a brainstorming session, and it will include short talks by key practitioners covering various aspects of erosion CFD modelling.

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