High static pressure due to flow transitioning associated with recirculation, mixing, and separation around a pipe bend is a possible cause for a decrease in flow efficiency. This paper aims to use edge-tailored guide vanes to ease flow transition and improve flow efficiency, numerically. Here, flow efficiency serves the purpose for qualifying the effectiveness of the proposed technology. Sensitivity studies were performed on the influence of number of guide vane and guide vane thickness in a 45° pipe elbow. In setting up the numerical model for the assumed two-phase flow system (crude oil and water), the volume of fluid model was activated to model time-dependent fluctuations of each interacting phase volume fraction throughout the flow period. Furthermore, the improved delayed detached-eddy simulation turbulence model is employed to resolve the flow features in and outside the wall boundary layer. From the findings, an improvement in flow performance was witnessed using guide vanes. Furthermore, three thin and non-contacting guide vanes were strategically positioned at the center and towards the circumference of the pipe within the bend area, causing an increase in flow efficiency by 78.87%. In addition, the guide vanes played a significant role in limiting turbulence effect to effective flow of the primary phase.

The flow dynamics in pipes is a very complex system because it is largely affected by flow conditions. The transport of crude oil in pipelines within unconsolidated petroleum reservoirs is associated with presence of solid particles. These particles are often transported as dispersed phases during crude oil production and are therefore detrimental to the pipe surface integrity. This could lead to the occurrences of crevice corrosion due to pipe erosion. In relation to the above discussion, this paper is aimed at analyzing crude oil dynamics during flow through pipeline and identifying erosion hotspot for different pipe elbow curvatures. Reynolds Averaging Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Particle Tracing Modeling (PTM) approach were used. The focus is to simulate fluid dynamics and particle tracing, respectively. Post-processed results revealed that the fluid velocity magnitude was relatively high at the region with minimum curvature radius. The maximum static pressure and turbulence dissipation rate were experienced in areas with low-velocity magnitude. Also, the rate of erosive wear was relatively high at the elbow and the hotspot varied with pipe curvature. The particle flow rate, mass, and size were varied and it was found that erosion rate increased with an increase in particle properties.