Experimental investigations on the erosion corrosion behavior of metals in pipes

Erosion corrosion is one of the serious problem being faced by many industries and the issue is more serve in piping systems. Usually when the flow starts in a piping system, initially an oxide film forms on the surface, which somehow slows down further oxidation/corrosion process. However if this film is removed via flow rate or sand particles present in the flow, corrosion rate is increased. So prediction of corrosion or erosion-corrosion with/without these oxide films is not easy, as there are multiple factors need to be considered. Parameters such as, the type of fluid, nature of flow, properties of sand particles present in the fluid and material composition etc. are very important and must be considered while investigating the erosion corrosion behavior of materials. The contribution to erosion by corrosion or to corrosion by erosion is an important subject which requires extensive investigations. There have been a lot of work on the erosion corrosion issue, but still there arent any effective correlations which can predict erosion-enhanced corrosion or corrosion-enhanced erosion. So in this proposed project, we propose to develop these correlations based on experimental investigations while simulating the real time situation in the piping systems. For this we have recently developed an in-house experimental erosion corrosion testing facility (stainless steel flow loop, erosion tester, rotating disk electrode facility), which will be used in these proposed studies. The experiments will be conducted for different materials (carbon steel, stainless steel, aluminum) under different flow conditions with and without erodent. Development of such correlations will be used later on for another project in which a computational/numerical model will be developed to predict the erosion corrosion behavior in piping systems. This proposed project will be of 24 months and requires a total budget of 463,800.