Name: Suheil El-Sayed
Biographical notes:
·
Completed a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the
·
Worked in the oil and gas industry from Sept 2004 to August 2007
·
Currently an M.Sc. student in Engineering Management since Sept
2007
·
A successful thesis defense was performed in April 2010
·
Currently performing some revisions to thesis
before final submission
Project Title: A Simple Parametric Wear Model for a Slurry Pipeline with
Bed Flow
Slurry transport is a key process in a number of industries. In
transporting mined oilsands, slurry pipelining
promotes conditioning to release and aerate bitumen prior to separation.
Reliability of slurry transport pipelines is a major ongoing problem for
operating companies due to unexpected piping failures. To date, no accurate
model has been developed to predict wear rates in slurry transport pipelines,
although previous studies have shown that some process variables are important
such as flow rate, slurry density, and particle size distribution. This work investigates erosion wear mechanisms
causing inner pipe wall wear due to sand slurry flow in a horizontal section of
pipe under steady state conditions.
Progress to Date:
A corresponding lumped-parameter erosion wear model was developed based
on a simplification of the physics of oilsands slurry
flow. A method for predicting erosion wear in sand
slurry pipeline was also presented. An apparatus was designed and developed to
measure the forces acting on the pipe inner wall to monitor forces related to
erosion in a laboratory-scale sand slurry loop. Preliminary testing of the
floating element assembly was conducted using water and sand slurry flows.
Future work includes validating the proposed lumped parameter erosion
model using laboratory scale testing utilizing wear advanced wear monitoring
techniques.
Expected completion date: Successful MSc defence April 8, 2010
Return to Mike Lipsett’s Research Page