The development of studying flexible pipe bend reinforced by Kevlar fibers

The flexible pipe bend can not only reduce the structural vibration and fluid noise in pipeline, but also realize the flexible connection of a horizontal line and a vertical line and compensate the displacement of three dimensions produced by the shock or vibration of pipeline in the special situations. Up to now, little attention has been paid to study the flexible pipe bend applied in the pipeline of medium or high pressure, because no appropriate framework materials can be used to reinforce it which must endure the burst pressure higher than 10 MPa. The investigation shows that it is possible to produce the flexible pipe bend of medium or high pressure if such fibers with high performance as Kevlar fibers are used to be its reinforced materials. However, its structural designing theory, manufacturing technology and measuring techniques aren't yet perfect and systematic, which leads to the instability of the performance of products. Furthermore, few references about its research can be seen. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically and thoroughly develop the structural designing theory, manufacture technology and measuring techniques of flexible pipe bend.

APPROXIMATE ESTIMATION OF HARDENING-SOFTENING BEHAVIOUR OF CIRCULAR PIPES SUBJECTED TO PURE BENDING

An approximate method for describing the plastic hardening-softening behaviour of circular pipes subjected to pure bending is presented. Theoretical estimation based on the uniform ovalization model and local collapse model proposed in the paper is incorporated to give several simple formulations with reasonable accuracy for determining the relationship between bending moment (M) and curvature (kappa) in the purely bended pipes. Attention is focused on the critical curvature associated with maximum resistant moment and the maximum change in the original diameter before the end of uniform ovalization stage as well as the local collapse behaviour. Some comparisons between analytical results and experimental results are made in order to examine the theory.

Defects detection in typical positions of bend pipes using low-frequency ultrasonic guided wave

In order to analyze the possibility of detecting defects in bend pipe using low-frequency ultrasonic guided wave, the propagation of T(0,1) mode and L(0,2) mode through straight-curved-straight pipe sections was studied. FE(finite element) models of bend pipe without defects and those with defects were introduced to analyze energy distribution, mode transition and defect detection of ultrasonic guided wave. FE simulation results were validated by experiments of four different bend pipes with circumferential defects in different positions. It is shown that most energy of T(0,1) mode or L(0,2) mode focuses on extrados of bend but little passes through intrados of bend, and T(0,1) mode or L(0,2) mode is converted to other possible non-axisymmetric modes when propagating through the bend and the defect after bend respectively. Furthermore, L(0,2) mode is more sensitive to circumferential notch than T(0,1) mode. The results of this work are beneficial for practical testing of pipes.

Investigation on two-phase flow-induced vibrations of a piping structure with an elbow

The dynamic behaviors of a horizontal piping structure with an elbow due to the two-phase flow excitation are experimentally investigated.The effects of flow patterns and superficial velocities on the pressure pulsations and vibration responses are evaluated in detail.A strong partition coupling algorithm is used to calculate the flow-induced vibration(FIV)responses of the pipe,and the theoretical values agree well with the experimental results.It is found that the lateral and axial vibration responses of the bend pipe are related to the momentum flux of the two-phase flow,and the vibration amplitudes of the pipe increase with an increase in the liquid mass flux.The vertical vibration responses are strongly affected by the flow pattern,and the maximum response occurs in the transition region from the slug flow to the bubbly flow.Moreover,the standard deviation(STD)amplitudes of the pipe vibration in three directions increase with an increase in the gas flux for both the slug and bubbly flows.The blockage of liquid slugs at the elbow section is found to strengthen the vibration amplitude of the bend pipe,and the water-blocking phenomenon disappears as the superficial gas velocity increases.

Fluid−Structure Interaction of Two-Phase Flow Passing Through 90° Pipe Bend Under Slug Pattern Conditions

Numerical simulations of evolution characteristics of slug flow across a 90°pipe bend have been carried out to study the fluid−structure interaction response induced by internal slug flow.The two-phase flow patterns and turbulence were modelled by using the volume of fluid(VOF)model and the Realizable k−εturbulence model respectively.Firstly,validation of the CFD model was carried out and the desirable results were obtained.The different flow patterns and the time-average mean void fraction was coincident with the reported experimental data.Simulations of different cases of slug flow have been carried out to show the effects of superficial gas and liquid velocity on the evolution characteristics of slug flow.Then,a one-way coupled fluid-structure interaction framework was established to investigate the slug flow interaction with a 90°pipe bend under various superficial liquid and gas velocities.It was found that the maximum total deformation and equivalent stress increased with the increasing superficial gas velocity,while decreased with the increasing superficial liquid velocity.In addition,the total deformation and equivalent stress has obvious periodic fluctuation.Furthermore,the distribution position of maximum deformation and stress was related to the evolution of slug flow.With the increasing superficial gas velocity,the maximum total deformation was mainly located at the 90°pipe bend.But as the superficial liquid velocity increases,the maximum total deformation was mainly located in the horizontal pipe section.Consequently,the slug flow with higher superficial gas velocity will induce more serious cyclical impact on the 90°pipe bend.

INVESTIGATION INTO THE SPRINGBACK OF PIPE BENDING USING INDUCTION HEATING

Stresses and deformation states of pipe bending are investigated under loading or unloading with various pipe materials, size, bending radius and deformation temperature. A theorem of springback of large diameter pipe bending is presented. The experiments are carried out with pipe materials of 20, 10CrMo910 and 12Cr1MoV steel. Results of computations are in good agreement with experiments.

Comprehensive Euler/Lagrange modelling including particle erosion for confined gas-solid flows

The present research aims to assess the capability of a comprehensive Euler/Lagrange approach for predicting gas-solid flows and the associated solid particle erosion.The open-source code OpenFOAM®4.1 was used to carry out the numerical simulations,where the standard Lagrangian libraries were substantially extended to account for all necessary models.Particles are tracked considering both translational and rotational motion as well as all relevant forces,such as gravity/buoyancy,drag and transverse lift due to shear and particle rotation.The tracking time step was dynamically adapted ac-cording to the locally relevant time scales,which drastically reduces computational times.Stochastic approaches are adopted to model particle turbulent dispersion,particle collisions with rough walls and particle-particle interactions.Five solid particle erosion models,available in the literature,were considered to estimate pipe bend erosion.Three study cases are provided to validate the adopted nu-merical approach and erosion models extensively.The first case intends to evaluate the ability of the extended CFD code to predict the behaviour of gas-solid flows in pneumatic conveying systems.This goal is achieved by comparing the numerical results with the experimental data obtained by Huber(1997)and Huber and Sommerfeld(1994,1998)in a pneumatic conveying system.Here,the importance of considering inter-particle collisions and surface roughness for predicting particle velocity,mass flux and mean diameter distributions in gas-solid flows is highlighted.The second and third case intend to evaluate the ability of the erosion models in estimating bend erosion in diluted gas-solid flows.The erosion data obtained experimentally by Mazumder et al.(2008)and Solnordal et al.(2015)in very dilut pneumatic conveying systems is used for validating the numerical results,neglecting now inter-particle collisions and two-way coupling.Besides a comprehensive analysis of the different influential properties on erosion,the innovation of the present study is as follows.For the first time also a temporal modifi-cation of the surface roughness due to the erosion was considered in the simulations obtained from previous measurements(Novelletto Ricardo&Sommerfeld,2020).As the surface roughness is increased due to erosion,eventually erosion rate becomes lower.This is the result of diminishing wall collision frequency.Simulations for several degrees of surface roughness showed that larger roughness is coupled with a drastic reduction of erosion.Hence,numerical simulations neglecting wall surface roughness are not realistic.The consideration of a particle size distribution instead of mono-sized computations showed a possible reduction of erosion rate.The detailed analysis of the different single-particle erosion models revealed that the model proposed by Oka et al.(2005)and Oka and Yoshida(2005)yields the best agreement with the measurements,however particle and wall properties are needed.

Stress and Springback Analyses of API X70 Pipeline Steel Under 3-Roller Bending via Finite Element Method

3-Roller bending is a widely applied manufacturing process, particularly in structural steel pipe industry.However, due to the difficulty and high cost of measuring stress distribution inside sheet material via traditional method,internal stress/strain response during forming is largely unexplored. The focuses of this study are two：（1） to map the radii of curvature as well as the stress inside the work piece during forming by utilizing the meshing mechanism of finite element method, and（2） to further provide some numeric guidelines for the configuration of the rolling system in order to improve production efficiency and product quality. The results of this study indicate that：（1） it is crucial to properly choose forming parameter in order to produce product with desired radii;（2） much like a gradual springback process, the radii of curvature gradually increase from the top roller to the exit-side bottom roller;（3） under the assumptions made in this study, to produce pipes with a specified diameter with varying configurations of the 3-roller system will not significantly change the final residual stress; and（4） finally, shifting of the neutral axis up to 2.0% of the thickness toward the compressing side during the forming process is observed.

SUPPRESSION OF THE SECONDARY FLOWS IN A BEND PIPE USING NAVIER-STOKES SOLVER AND EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS

Hydrodynamic optimization design of the bend pipe from pump using theNavier-Stokes solver and evolutionary algorithms was conducted. The minimization of the totalpressure loss of the bend pipe was chosen as the design object in order to obtain the uniform exitflows through suppressing the secondary flows. The 3-D Navier-Stokes solver was applied to evaluatethe hydrodynamic performance of the bend-pipe flows. A 7th-order Bezier curve was used toparameterize the meridional section and elliptic representation was adopted to represent thecross-section profiles of the bend pipe. Evolutionary algorithms were applied in optimization. Theobtained results show that the designed bend pipe shape has much more uniform exit flows comparedwith the initial one and much weaker secondary flows, and that the evolutionary algorithms and CFDtechnique are the powerful optimization tools for the fluid machinery desiga