BP at Sunbury

TECHNICAL BULLETIN
Title:

Summary:

EROSION
Erosion can be defined in a variety of ways, but is essentially the wastage of
materials due to the mechanical removal of the material surfaces by flowing
environments. Such wastage is most extreme when solids (such as sand) are present
in the environment.
Erosion is a problem to BPX when the operating conditions lead to consequent
damage of equipment or conversely where velocity, and hence production limits,
must be set to avoid erosion occurring.

Serial No:

TB0036

Date:

27th October 1997

Issued by:

Engineering Shared Service

Tel:

01932 762989

Team:

Group Title

Fax:

01932 762987

For further information contact:

John Martin, Materials & Inspection Group, GRE Sunbury

Erosion Mechanisms
Many flow dependent wastage mechanisms are termed "erosion". There are four main
mechanisms that need to be considered:

Erosion by non-corrosive fluids through liquid droplet or gas bubble impact

"Pure" solids erosion by a non-corrosive fluid carrying solid particles
Erosion-corrosion by a corrosive medium in the absence of solids
Erosion-corrosion by a corrosive medium containing solids.

Considering the effects of these mechanisms separately:

Erosion by non-corrosive fluids through liquid droplet or gas bubble
impact
In the absence of solids, erosion by non-corrosive fluids is not significant at
velocities below 100 m/s (328 ft/s). However, solids-free, non-corrosive fluids
at such high velocities are not normally present in oil-field service, with the
possible exception of flow through choke valves. Choke valves will be covered
as part of guidelines dealing with erosion problems in production systems being
prepared in 1997.
"Pure" solids erosion by a non-corrosive fluid carrying solid particles
Erosion by solids is generally proportional to MV2/d2 if all else (eg flow regime,
gas-liquid ratio) remains constant, where M is the solids production rate (eg in
g/s), V is the net fluid velocity (eg in m/s) and d is the pipe or tubing internal
diameter (eg in mm). This can be expressed as SV3/d2 where S is the solids
concentration in the fluid (eg in pounds per thousand barrels of liquid).
Thus if the production rate doubles then the pure erosion rate (ie ignoring
corrosion) will increase by a factor of 8. For oil/gas production systems, given
that increased production can often increase the solids concentration (or solids
"loading") then a rule-of-thumb would be that a two-fold increase in
production gives an order of magnitude increase in erosion if solids are present.
Although different materials exhibit different solids erosion characteristics, the
variation is not large between materials commonly used for oil/gas plant, e.g.
carbon steel, 13 Cr stainless steel, duplex stainless steel, Incoloy 825, Inconel
625. As a first pass, it is sufficient to ignore differences between the erosion
resistance of such materials.

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Erosion-corrosion1 by a corrosive medium in the absence of solids

This is sometimes confused with flow-enhanced corrosion, where the flow
regime leads to enhanced mass transport of corrosion products and reactants.
In the present context erosion-corrosion in the absence of solids is taken to
refer to enhanced wastage due to the physical rupture of any protective,
corrosion-product layers by energetic fluid flow regimes and the consequential
corrosion. The mechanical removal of a corrosion inhibitor film can also be
defined as a form of erosion-corrosion.
In environments containing dissolved gases such as CO2 or O2, corrosion is
usually controlled by the presence of protective layers. In the case of carbon
steel this is normally a precipitated layer of corrosion product; in the case of
corrosion-resistant alloys such as duplex or austenitic stainless steels it will be a
very thin (around 10-9 m or 10's of ) passive layer. Under solids-free
conditions these protective layers can be damaged or eroded by fluid flow.
Droplet impact in multiphase flow is possible in annular-mist flow and the
resultant damage can be much more severe than the damage caused by shear
stress forces in liquid flow. Passive films on materials such as duplex stainless
steel are the strongest and most adherent and reform very rapidly; precipitated
films on carbon steel are the weakest and least adherent and reform relatively
slowly.
Erosion-corrosion by a corrosive medium containing solids.
In solids-containing environments, the degree of synergy that can occur
between erosion and corrosion is presently unclear. If either the expected
erosion or expected corrosion are an order of magnitude less than the other
then synergistic effects between them are likely to be small. Laboratory data
suggests that solids erosion can lead to severe localised attack in carbon steel if
the erosivity is within a certain range or totally destroy a protective layer at
higher values (leading to general corrosion but not penetrating the wall so
quickly). There is also evidence to suggest that, in anaerobic CO2 containing
environments, solids can damage protective layers on 13 % Cr materials
leading to erosion-corrosion at temperatures up to 80C. Above this the 13%Cr
steel has been found to re-film very quickly, i.e. no synergy between erosion
and corrosion is expected. Results on corrosion-resistant alloys such as
austenitic or duplex stainless steel suggest that there is no corrosion-erosion
synergy - implying that the wastage is only through erosion.

Erosion-corrosion occurs in environments which have the potential to be both erosive and corrosive.
The erosion and the corrosion can either be independent, in which case the total wastage is the sum of
the wastage produced by each mechanism in isolation, or synergistic, in which case the total wastage
is greater than the sum of the independent processes of erosion and corrosion.

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Guidelines on Erosion Assessment.

Guidelines on erosion have been developed primarily for oil and gas2 production.
However, many of the aspects of erosion discussed in these Guidelines are equally
applicable across BPs interests.
As the flow streams in the oil/gas industry are rarely totally solids free, two types of
service have been defined for the Guidelines, nominally solids free where the solids
content of the stream are less than 1 pptb (pounds per thousand barrels) for liquid
service or less than 0.1 ppmmscf (pounds per million standard cubic feet) for gas
service. This level was selected because at 1 pptb of liquid for oil/multiphase systems
(equivalent to about 0.1 ppmmscf of gas for gas systems) most erosion models predict
insignificant levels of erosion, coupled with the fact that this is at the level of detection
of current solids (e.g. sand) monitoring techniques.
Most erosion damage will occur at bends and flow disruptions and is likely to be an
order of magnitude greater than erosion in straight pipe or tubing. The possible
exception to this is slug flow where flow can impact on the pipe or tubing wall on
straight sections. The Guidelines consider damage at bends/constrictions, and therefore
will be conservative when applied to straight pipe or tubing in the absence of slug flow.
The main recommendations of the Erosion Guidelines2 are summarised into two 'Flow
Charts', which can be used for the assessment of erosion risk.
For copies of the Erosion Guidelines and/or Charts or for more information
contact J W Martin, MIE, ESS Sunbury, Phone Extension 2989; Fax Extension
2987; E-mail Martin, John JW

J W Martin & J Pattinson, Erosion Guidelines Revision 2.0., ESR.97.ER.002, January 1997

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