Department of Production Engineering, University of Benin, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria.
This paper's theme is the use of numerical methods to determine the critical flow velocity that would be approximately sufficient to keep heterogeneous particles from settling, and to simultaneously sustain them in motion so that they can be normally collected by sand cyclonic collectors built at strategic locations in the pipeline; forced particle – pipe wall interactions would be eliminated therefore avoiding pressure surges and pipe wear that could eventually lead to leakages. The elimination of these anticipated problems is here examined. Hence, from the numerical analysis carried out, the transitional velocity was 8.5 m/s, mean critical velocity was 6.68 m/s, the critical velocity of 4.5 m/s was obtained, whereas, the settling velocity was 2.5 m/s and the stagnation velocity of 0.25 m/s was also obtained. These velocity components define control limits expected to manage velocity variation that occur in pipelines conveying fluids as well as sizeable quantity of hard particles.
critical velocity, drag coefficient, heterogeneous particles, pipeline, settling velocity, transitional velocity
