Computational investigation of erosion wear in the eco-friendly disposal of the fly ash through 90° horizontal bend of different radius ratios

Abstract In the present study, slurry erosion wear was evaluated in 90° horizontal pipe bends of various radius ratios (R/r = 2–10) through a commercial CFD code ANSYS FLUENT. For the suspension of fly ash-water, Euler–Lagrange and two way-coupling methods were employed to predict the slurry erosion wear. The flow through the horizontal bend pipe was simulated using a Standard k–ε turbulence modelling. The computational results were validated with the experimental result of the available literature. Fly ash was taken as the dispersed phase of the solid-liquid combination however water was used as the liquid phase. The fly ash particles size was taken as 150 µm. Various affecting factors, such as velocity (4–10 m/s) and solid concentration (2.5 and 7.5% by volume) of the fly ash, were also studied in this investigation. The erosion rate was maximum in the case of R/r = 4 and minimum for R/r = 10 at all velocities and concentrations. It was also found that the erosion rate increases with the increase in solid concentration and velocity.