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Numerical study on characteristics of flow accelerated corrosion in a globe valve under different working conditions

  • Guang Zhang , Jinghui Cheng , Abhilash Suryan , Hanguang Wang and Zhe Lin EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 5, 2024
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Corrosion Reviews
From the journal Corrosion Reviews Volume 43 Issue 3

Abstract

As a part of pipeline systems, globe valves play an important role in cutting off and regulating fluid transmission in fields such as petrochemicals, coal chemicals, and metallurgy. During the transportation of corrosive fluid media, flow accelerated corrosion (FAC) caused by internal flow is the main form of valve failure, which seriously affects the safe and reliable operation of the entire transmission system. In this study, the effects of different valve openings and inlet velocities on characteristics of internal flows and corrosion were investigated by numerical simulations in globe valve. The distributions of velocity, pressure, and wall shear stress were obtained and discussed in detail. The corrosion rate of key components of globe valve was obtained and analyzed to reveal characteristics of FAC. Results show that the FAC is more serious with the increase of inlet velocity while it becomes the more serious at moderate valve opening degree. In addition, wall shear stress was verified to be able to describe FAC in globe valve. The obtained results were quite meaningful for guiding the structural design of globe valves in corrosion suppression, which extends the service life of globe valves and ensures the safety of conveying systems.

Keywords: globe valve; FAC; wall shear stress; corrosion rate; numerical simulation

1 Introduction

Process valves are key equipment in the transportation of petrochemical, coal chemical, and energy industries. The main function of processing valves is to regulate flow rate, pressure, or flow direction of working media and serve as the throat of the entire transportation system, ensuring the stable and reliable operation of the entire transportation system. With the development of the process industry, process valves are often used in the transportation of highly corrosive media such as chemical fuels, petroleum solvents, strong acids, and easily crystallized salts, which can easily cause corrosion damage to the inner wall surface of the process valve during transportation, seriously affecting the safe and stable operation of the entire transportation system. Corrosion damage is the main form of failure of fluid conveying equipment. With the in-depth study of corrosion behavior, internal flows were revealed to have great influence on corrosion damage and FAC has gradually become a research hot spot.

In recent years, many scholars have done extensive research on FAC. First, some progress has been made in the research on the mechanism and influencing factors of FAC. The rate of FAC was found to depend on flow properties and working conditions. The chemistry and material of working fluid set an overall propensity for FAC, while the local flow characteristics determine the local distribution of FAC (Pietralik and Schefski 2011). FAC is different from erosion and is primarily an electrochemical corrosion process aided by chemical dissolution and mass transfer (Kain 2014). Xu showed (Xu and Tan 2019) that the propagation of FAC is due to flow generated interfacial anolyte transportation and microturbulences around the initial pits, causing the “flow mark” corrosion appearance. The distribution of corrosion rate at the gradual pipe contraction was affected by the distribution of hydrodynamics parameters including flow velocity and wall shear stress. It was found that the flow velocity or higher wall shear stress is higher, the local corrosion rate is higher (Zhong et al. 2020). Results of corrosion test performed by Ajmal et al. (2019) indicate that hydrodynamic parameters, especially shear stress and flow velocity, play a crucial role in FAC, that is, the corrosion rate is higher due to the turbulence with higher shear stress and flow velocity. Madasamy studied (Madasamy et al. 2018, 2021) that the effect of bending geometry on FAC under neutral pH conditions through experiments and numerical simulations and tried to combine wall thickness loss with wall shear stress. The numerical results are in good agreement with the experimental data. Kim showed (Kim and Kim 2016) that FAC is a main reason of wall thinning and the comparison of numerical and experimental analysis indicates that the radial velocity of deflected turbulent flow correlated directly with local wall thinning. Ponnamma (Hari Ponnamma et al. 2014) analyzed the turbulent flow field leading to FAC in different carbon steel tube components. The results showed that the position with higher wall shear stress is more prone to FAC.

Second, the characterization and prediction of FAC have been investigated by many researchers. Ahmed (Ahmed et al. 2012, 2014) studied the influence of local flow and mass transfer parameters on FAC at the downstream of the orifice plate and the flow corrosion under two-phase flow conditions through numerical calculation and experimental tests. The results show that the turbulent kinetic energy and mass transfer coefficient can well characterize the FAC rate at the downstream of the hole. The variation of mass transfer coefficient with time was used by Prasad et al. (2018a,b) to estimate pipe wall corrosion. Meanwhile, some models were proposed for the prediction of wall corrosion. Sanama (Sanama et al. 2018) established an analytical model using the nondimensional analysis to evaluate the rate of corrosion in a horizontal pipe downstream of an orifice under FAC. Gu (Gu et al. 2022) established a three-layer back-propagation neural network model to predict corrosion characteristics. It was known that the areas where flow corrosion occurs more severely are generally the areas where eddies are generated. Based on fluid dynamics analysis, the fluid velocity gradient near the eddy is large, resulting in higher shear stress near the wall. Therefore, using shear stress to characterize FAC rate is more accurate than using flow velocity to characterize FAC rate. Jin (Jin et al. 2020) obtained the power, exponential and parabolic function relationship between corrosion rate and corrosive medium mass fraction, temperature, and shear stress by fitting. According to the results of single variable, the prediction formula of FAC rate was derived.

Third, scholars have also made many explorations on the law of FAC. Rao (Rao et al. 2021) established a single-phase FAC test loop for No.20 steel elbow and simulated the typical working conditions of the secondary loop. The results show that the wall thinning rate of the curved pipe is higher than that of the straight pipe, especially the concave part of the curved pipe. It was found that the combined effect of flow velocity and temperature in different parts is different, and the combined effect of elbow part is particularly obvious (Utanohara and Murase 2019). The hydrodynamic effect of single-phase flow on FAC in 90° elbow under the condition of Re = 40,000 was studied (El-Gammal et al. 2010). It was shown that the overall mass transfer rate through the entire elbow surface increases with time, which can be attributed to the increase in surface roughness developed from the surface wear. According to the findings of Zeng et al. (2020), it was noted that during the FAC process, the fluid moves from the nonprotective cathodic phase on the surface and facilitates the mass transfer process, thus promoting the corrosion of carbon steel. Meanwhile, the corrosion is more severe under single-phase flow than that under solid–liquid two-phase flow.

From the above researches, it can be found that the wall shear stress has become hot spot of FAC research, but the research mainly focuses on the FAC in the pipeline, and there is almost no research on the FAC in valves. However, scholars have conducted some research on the internal flow of globe valves without considering FAC in valves. Praveen (Praveen and Pathan 2017) observed the flow pattern to measure flow coefficients and fluctuations when the globe valve with different flow rate and uniform incoming velocities were initialized in a pipeline system. Sreekala (Sreekala and Thirumalini 2016) modeled the globe valves with different cage configurations and throttling positions and obtained the valve coefficient, pressure, and velocity distributions inside and outside the cage, which were verified by experimental results. Qian et al. (Qian et al. 2014) established the mathematical model of the pilot-control globe valve and used the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method to simulate dynamic characteristics. Through the analysis of the internal flow field distributions, its working principle is verified. Lin (Lin et al. 2015) studied the effect of cone angle on the hydraulic characteristics of globe control valve by combining CFD and experimental tests.

The globe valve, as an important regulating equipment, plays a role in cutting off and throttling in the pipeline system. When the corrosive fluid medium moves through globe valve, the fluid turbulence intensity and mass transfer increase due to the flow of the fluid medium on the valve body wall, leading to serious FAC on the wall. Corrosion damage will not only increase the safety hazards of the conveying system but also cause economic losses and environmental pollution. Therefore, it is necessary to study the FAC of globe valves based on actual operating conditions and fluid dynamics theory analysis.

2 Computational domain and numerical method

2.1 Computational domain

The structure of the globe valve flow channel studied in this paper is shown in Figure 1a. The diameter of the valve flow channel is D = 50 mm. In order to make the internal flows fully developed, the length of the upstream pipeline of the valve is set to be 5D, and the length of the downstream pipeline is 10D. The flow direction of the medium is in the positive direction of the x-axis, and the direction of gravity acceleration is vertical. Numerical grids of three-dimensional globe valve flow channel model are created by ICEM. The flow channel adopts unstructured grid technology, and the grids of valve core part are partially encrypted, as shown in Figure 1b. The opening displacement of the core of globe valve is set to 6 mm, 12 mm, 18 mm, 24 mm, and 30 mm, and the inlet and outlet are, respectively, set as pressure inlet and pressure outlet to study characteristics of the flow field and FAC in globe valve at different openings determined by the displacement of the valve core. In addition, in order to study the effect of inlet velocity on FAC, the inlet and outlet are, respectively, set as velocity inlet and pressure outlet at the fixed displacement of valve core, and the inlet velocity is set to 1 m/s, 3 m/s, and 5 m/s to study characteristics of flow field and FAC of the globe valve. The specific parameters are shown in Table 1.

Figure 1: Schematic diagram of (a) structure model and (b) grid model.
Figure 1:

Schematic diagram of (a) structure model and (b) grid model.

Table 1:

Detailed boundary conditions

Parameter Value
Valve core displacement (mm) 6, 12, 18, 24, 30
Inlet velocity (m/s) 1, 3, 5
Parameter Value
Inlet pressure (MPa) 1
Outlet pressure (MPa) 0.5
Fluid medium 30 wt％HCl
Temperature (K) 298
Medium density (kg/m³) 1,146
Medium viscosity (Pa·s) 0.001568

2.2 Numerical method

2.2.1 Governing equation

Assuming Newton incompressible working fluid, the finite volume method is used to discretize the governing equation. The coupling calculation between velocity and pressure is realized by SIMPLE algorithm and the second-order upwind scheme in the algorithm is used for pressure and momentum discretization methods. The mass conservation Equation (1) and momentum conservation Equation (2) are shown in the following.

(1) ∂ u ∂ x + ∂ v ∂ y + ∂ w ∂ z = 0

(2) { ρ ( ∂ u ∂ t + u ∂ u ∂ x + v ∂ u ∂ y + w ∂ u ∂ z ) = − ∂ p ∂ x + ∂ τ x x ∂ x + ∂ τ y x ∂ y + ∂ τ z x ∂ z + F x ρ ( ∂ v ∂ t + u ∂ v ∂ x + v ∂ v ∂ y + w ∂ v ∂ z ) = − ∂ p ∂ y + ∂ τ x y ∂ x + ∂ τ y y ∂ y + ∂ τ z y ∂ z + F y ρ ( ∂ w ∂ t + u ∂ w ∂ x + v ∂ w ∂ y + w ∂ w ∂ z ) = − ∂ p ∂ z + ∂ τ x z ∂ x + ∂ τ y z ∂ y + ∂ τ z z ∂ z + F z

Where ρ is the fluid density, t is time, u, v, and w represent the components of velocity on the three axes of x, y, and z, respectively. p is the static pressure, τ xx, τ xy, and τ xz are the components of the viscous force τ in the direction of x, y, and z. F x, F y, and F z are the components of the sum of gravity and external force vectors in the x, y, and z directions.

2.2.2 Turbulence model

Considering the influence of near-wall fluid flow on wall erosion, in order to obtain the distribution of shear stress near the wall and the accurate solution in the turbulent region, shear stress transport SST k-ω turbulence model that can well predict the detailed flow field inside the boundary layer near the wall and flows with high shear stress is used to solve the flow field. Where k and ω are determined by the corresponding transport Equations (3) and (4).

(3) ∂ ∂ t ( ρ k ) + ∂ ∂ x i ( ρ k u i ) = ∂ ∂ x j ( Γ k ∂ k ∂ x j ) + G k − Y k + S k

(4) ∂ ∂ t ( ρ ω ) + ∂ ∂ x i ( ρ ω u i ) = ∂ ∂ x j ( Γ ω ∂ ω ∂ x j ) + G ω − Y ω + D ω + S ω

Where k is turbulent kinetic energy, J, ω is the turbulent dissipation rate, %, x is the coordinate vector, u is the velocity vector (i, j = 1, 2, 3, respectively, x, y, z three space coordinates), G k is the turbulent kinetic energy term generated by the average velocity gradient, G ω is the corresponding turbulent kinetic energy ratio dissipation rate term, Y k and Y ω are the dissipation terms of k and ω caused by turbulence, respectively. S k and S ω are custom source terms, and D ω is a cross-diffusion term, Γ k and Γ ω are the effective diffusion coefficient terms of k and ω, respectively.

2.2.3 Calculation model of FAC

The relationship between FAC rate and mass fraction, temperature, as well as flow rate of corrosive medium was experimentally revealed by Jin (Jin et al. 2020). According to experimental results and numerical fitting, the calculation formula of FAC rate is shown in the following.

(5) F A C ( NH 4 Cl ) = a ⋅ ( w ( NH 4 Cl ) + 0.01 ) b ⋅ e c T ⋅ ( i ⋅ w s s 2 + j ⋅ w s s + k )

Where FAC (NH4Cl) is FAC rate of NH4Cl, w (NH4Cl) is the mass concentration of NH4Cl, T is temperature, and wss is the wall shear stress. e is a natural constant in mathematics, which is an infinite non repeating decimal with a value of approximately 2.71828182. a, b, c, i, j, and k are all constant terms with values of 0.161119, 0.286452, 0.048588, 0.009311, 0.328685, and 0.38048, respectively. The above formula is used for numerical calculation of FAC rate under corrosive medium conditions.

Cl−, as the main corrosive component in NH4Cl solution and HCl solution, has extremely strong penetration and adsorption ability. So, the FAC rate of HCl can be calculated by Equation (5), while the w in the equation needs to be corrected.

The expression of the amount of substance concentration.

(6) c = 1000 × ρ ⋅ w M

Where c is the amount of substance concentration, mol/L, ρ is the solution density, g/ml, w is solute mass fraction, and M is the molar mass of the solute, g/mol.

If the concentration of Cl− in NH4Cl solution and HCl solution is the same, then:

(7) c ( NH 4 Cl ) = 1000 × ρ ( NH 4 Cl ) ⋅ w ( NH 4 Cl ) M ( NH 4 Cl ) = 1000 × ρ ( HCl ) ⋅ w ( HCl ) M ( HCl ) = c ( HCl )

The molar masses of NH4Cl and HCl are 53.49  g/mol and 36.46  g/mol, respectively, then:

(8) w ( NH 4 Cl ) = 1.467087 × w ( HCl )

Substitute equation (8) into equation (5) and let n = 1.467087 to obtain the calculation formula for the FAC rate of HCl solution:

(9) F A C ( HCl ) = a ⋅ ( n ⋅ w ( HCl ) + 0.01 ) b ⋅ e c T ⋅ ( i ⋅ w s s 2 + j ⋅ w s s + k )

3 Calculation verification

3.1 Verification of grid independence and numerical calculation

In order to ensure the accuracy and speed of the calculation, grid independence verification must be performed. By verifying the flow coefficient and resistance coefficient of the valve under different grid numbers, the appropriate number of grids was selected. The operating conditions include that the valve opening stroke is 30 mm, the inlet pressure is 1 MPa, the outlet pressure is 0.5 MPa, the fluid medium is 30 wt % HCl, and the temperature is 298 K. The number of computational grids is 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 million, respectively. Figure 2a shows that when the number of grids is less than 3 million, the flow and resistance coefficients gradually change. However, when the number of grids is more than 3 million, the flow and resistance coefficients almost keep similarly. Therefore, this paper chooses 3 million as the number of grids for present numerical simulations.

Figure 2: Verification of grid independence and numerical calculation.
Figure 2:

Verification of grid independence and numerical calculation.

Since the valve used in this study is a DN50 globe valve, in order to verify the accuracy of the flow field simulation, a set of experimental data of the flow coefficient of the DN50 globe valve at different openings by Lin (Lin et al. 2015) was used to verify the precision of numerical calculation. It can be seen from Figure 2b that the experimental results are in good agreement with the numerical results. The results indicate that the present numerical method is able to be used for the calculation of unsteady flows in globe valve.

3.2 Verification of FAC

In order to verify the accuracy of FAC in numerical simulations, the numerical verification of FAC in a DN50 straight-through globe valve scrapped in practical engineering application was carried out. Figure 3a and b are the comparison of the simulation results (right) and the actual situation (left) of the FAC of valve seat and valve core, respectively. The results show that numerical FAC results are in good agreement with results from the actual situation, which indicates the FAC prediction model used in this study has good accuracy. It can also be seen from Figure 3 that the FAC is mainly concentrated on the upper surface of valve seat and the bottom surface of valve core, so the subsequent research mainly focuses on these two areas.

Figure 3: Comparison of practical and numerical corrosion contours of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core.
Figure 3:

Comparison of practical and numerical corrosion contours of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core.

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Effect of inlet velocity on FAC

4.1.1 Flow field

The inlet velocity of the valve is set to 1 m/s, 3 m/s, and 5 m/s, respectively, and other conditions are kept unchanged. The flow field characteristics and flow corrosion characteristics of the valve are analyzed. Figure 4 is the velocity and pressure contours of the valve symmetry surface at different inlet velocities. Based on the streamlines of the valve symmetry surface at different inlet velocities in Figure 4a, inlet velocities have effects on the flow field in vortex distributions and recirculating flows. In addition, internal flows are accelerated at the outlet under the closure effect of valve core. There is a high velocity region in the outlet, which increases with the increase of inlet velocity.

Figure 4: Contours of (a) velocity and (b) pressure contours at different inlet velocities.
Figure 4:

Contours of (a) velocity and (b) pressure contours at different inlet velocities.

As shown in Figure 4b, the inlet velocity was observed to have obvious effect on pressure distributions around and downstream of valve core. The pressure gradient is larger around the valve seat due to the closure effect of valve core. The fluid pressure in the upper section of valve seat is relatively low, while the fluid pressure in the lower section of the valve seat is relatively high. The flow pressure around the valve core is relatively low, and it is the lowest at the valve outlet. The flow area becomes small due to small opening of valve core, leading to high-speed jet flows and corresponding low pressure at the downstream of valve core.

4.1.2 Wall shear stress

Observation surfaces are set on valve seat and valve core, respectively, as shown in Figure 5. The wall shear stress on the observation surfaces was extracted and drawn into 3D contour map, as shown in Figure 6a and b. It can be seen that the wall shear stress on the observation surfaces of valve seat and valve core gradually increases as the inlet velocity increases. The wall shear stress on the valve seat surface is concentrated on both sides of the X axis. The shear stress distribution on the valve core surface is mainly distributed in the edge area, and the edge area in the negative direction of the X-axis is the most concentrated. This is because at this opening degree of the valve, the fluid will flow around after impacting the bottom surface of the valve core, and these flows will eventually converge to the outlet of the valve body along the side wall surface. The fluid in the positive direction of the X-axis is more serious to the surface of the valve seat, while the fluid in the negative direction of the X-axis is more serious to the bottom surface of the valve core.

Figure 5: Observation surface of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core.
Figure 5:

Observation surface of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core.

Figure 6: 3D contour maps of wall shear stress at different inlet velocities.
Figure 6:

3D contour maps of wall shear stress at different inlet velocities.

As shown in Figure 7, the average wall shear stress on observation surfaces of valve seat and valve core has the same change trend at different inlet velocities. It increases with the increase of the inlet velocity while the change rate of the average wall shear stress of the valve seat is greater than that at the valve core, which indicates that the influence of the inlet velocity on the valve seat is greater than that on the valve core.

Figure 7: Average wall shear stress at different inlet velocities.
Figure 7:

Average wall shear stress at different inlet velocities.

4.1.3 Average corrosion rate

Figure 8 shows the corrosion rate contours of valve seat and valve core at different inlet velocities. It can be seen that the lower the inlet velocity, the more uniform the corrosion distribution of valve seat and valve core, and the corrosion rate distribution is more concentrated in a certain area with the increase of the inlet velocity. As the inlet velocity increases, the corrosion rate is gradually increased. Corrosion rate was observed to be relatively higher at valve seat compared to that at valve core due to the effect of high-speed jet flows.

Figure 8: Corrosion rate contours of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core at different inlet velocities.
Figure 8:

Corrosion rate contours of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core at different inlet velocities.

The flow corrosion rate of valve seat and valve core is calculated at different inlet velocities by using Equation (9) and the average corrosion rate are shown in Figure 9. It can be found that with the increase of inlet velocity, the average corrosion rate on both valve seat and core are gradually increased and the change trend of average corrosion rate is similar. This indicates the FAC in globe valve increases with the increase of inlet velocity. In addition, the FAC is more serious at valve seat compared to that at valve core.

Figure 9: Average corrosion rate at different inlet velocities.
Figure 9:

Average corrosion rate at different inlet velocities.

4.2 Effect of valve opening on FAC

4.2.1 Flow field

Figure 10a is the velocity contours in the center section of globe valve under different valve opening degrees. It can be seen that the flow velocity magnitudes change less at relatively smaller opening degrees while the velocity distributions are greatly affected by valve opening degrees. There are high velocity areas on both sides of the bottom of the valve core. With the increase of valve opening degree, the flow velocity gradually increases, and high-speed flows are gradually attached the upper wall of at the downstream of valve core.

Figure 10: Contours of (a) velocity and (b) pressure at different valve openings.
Figure 10:

Contours of (a) velocity and (b) pressure at different valve openings.

Figure 10b is the pressure contours at center section of globe valve under different valve opening degrees. It can be seen that with the increase of valve core displacement, the local high-pressure area at the bottom of valve core continues to shrink and gradually moves to the outlet side. This is because as the displacement of the valve core increases, the blocking effect of the valve core on the fluid gradually decreases. As the valve core displacement increases, the pressure difference between upstream and downstream of valve core becomes smaller and pressure distributions becomes more uniform.

4.2.2 Wall shear stress

Figures 11a and 11b are the 3D contour maps of wall shear stress distributions on observation surfaces of valve seat and valve core, respectively. The specific coordinate diagram is shown in Figure 5. It can be seen from Figure 11a that the wall shear stress on the observation surface of the valve seat gradually increases but the range gradually decreases with the increase of valve opening degree. This is due to the increase in valve core displacement, which enhances the high-speed flow attached to valve seat, but the high-speed flow gradually moves away from the valve seat surface due to inertia.

Figure 11: 3D map contours of wall shear stress of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core at different valve openings.
Figure 11:

3D map contours of wall shear stress of (a) valve seat and (b) valve core at different valve openings.

It can be seen from Figure 11b that the wall shear stress on the observation surface of valve core firstly increases and then decreases as the valve opening degree increases. When the valve core displacement is 6 mm, the wall shear stress concentration area on the valve core is mainly distributed at the edge. As the valve core displacement increases to 18 mm, the wall shear stress concentration area in the negative direction of the X-axis gradually increases. This is due to the increase in the contact area between the fluid in the negative direction of the X-axis and the valve core observation surface when the valve core displacement increases. When the valve core displacement increases to 24 mm and 30 mm, the wall shear stress concentration area on the valve core observation surface is transferred to the positive direction of the X-axis. This is due to the increase of the valve core displacement to a certain extent, the blocking effect of the valve core on the fluid becomes slight, and the fluid at the bottom of valve core mainly flows along the positive direction of the X-axis, and the diversion in other directions decreases.

As shown in Figure 12, as the valve core displacement increases, the average wall shear stress on the observation surfaces of valve seat and valve core increases firstly and then decreases. When the displacement of valve core is located at 12 mm and 18 mm, the average wall shear stress on valve seat and valve core reaches to maximum values, respectively. This is due to the increase of impacting effect of high-speed flows on valve core and seat induced by the blocking influence of valve core with the increase of valve opening degree, which leads to the increase of wall shear stress. When the displacement of valve core is greater than 18 mm, the average wall shear stress on valve seat and core is gradually reduced, which is due to the decrease of impact effect of high-speed flows on valve core. As shown in Figure 10a, when the valve core displacement is greater than 12 mm, the high-speed flows almost disappear, resulting in the decrease in average wall shear stress on valve seat.

Figure 12: Average wall shear stress at different valve openings.
Figure 12:

Average wall shear stress at different valve openings.

4.2.3 Average corrosion rate

Figures 13a and 13b show the corrosion rate contours of valve seat and valve core at different valve opening degrees. It can be seen that at a small valve opening degree, the corrosion area is distributed around. As the valve opening degree increases, the corrosion area becomes narrow and concentrates near the valve exit. Meanwhile, due to the influence of high-speed flows, the corrosion rate at the valve seat is relatively higher than that at the valve core.

Figure 13: Corrosion rate contours of (a) valve seat (b) valve core at different valve openings.
Figure 13:

Corrosion rate contours of (a) valve seat (b) valve core at different valve openings.

Figure 14 shows the average corrosion rate of valve seat and core at different valve opening degrees. It can be seen that the average corrosion rate of valve seat is larger than that on valve core, indicating FAC of valve seat is more serious than FAC of valve core. With the increase of valve opening degree, the average corrosion rate of valve core and valve seat firstly increases and then decreases. This is due to that at small valve opening degrees, due to the blocking effect of valve core, high-speed flows attach and impact on valve core and valve seat, leading to relatively large average corrosion rate on valve core and valve seat. At large valve opening degrees, the blocking effect of valve core gradually alleviates and less high-speed flows attach and impact on valve core and valve seat, which results to small average corrosion rate on valve core valve seat in globe valve. This indicates that the FAC of the valve seat and core is the more severe at moderate valve opening degree from 12 mm and 18 mm.

Figure 14: Average corrosion rate at different valve openings.
Figure 14:

Average corrosion rate at different valve openings.

5 Summary

Numerical simulations were carried out to study characteristics of flow field and FAC in globe valve under different inlet velocities and valve opening degrees. The calculation model of FAC was modified by considering the concentration of corrosive component of working fluid. The inlet velocity was observed to have obvious effects on velocity and pressure distributions of flow field. As the inlet velocity increases, wall shear stress and average corrosion rate of valve seat and core gradually increase due to higher-speed jet flows impacting on both valve seat and core. This reveals FAC of globe valve will be more serious under higher flow velocity. As the valve opening increases, the maximum wall shear stress on the valve seat gradually increases, while the average wall shear stress and average corrosion rate first increase and then decrease. This is because as the valve opening increases, the strength of the high-speed flows attached to the valve seat gradually increases, but the high-speed flows attached to the valve seat gradually moves away, resulting in a decrease in contact area. The maximum shear stress, average wall shear stress, and average corrosion rate on the valve core all increase firstly and then decrease. This is because at smaller valve openings, due to the blockage effect of the valve core, high-speed flows will attach and impact the valve core, while at larger openings, the impact of high-speed flows attached to the valve core will be reduced. In addition, FAC of valve seat is always more serious that FAC of valve core in globe valve. At the same time, the opening degrees of the valve have a significant impact on the FAC of the valve core and valve seat. Based on above conclusions, the structure of valve seat and core should be consider and optimized to inhibit FAC by alleviating the attached impact of high-speed flows in globe valve. This study accurately predicted FAC and explored the flow field characteristics and FAC characteristics inside the globe valve, providing theoretical support for its suppression structure design, which helps to improve the service life of the globe valve, the safety, and reliability of the conveying system.

Corresponding author: Zhe Lin, Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Multiflow and Fluid Machinery, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China; and National-Provincial Joint Engineering Laboratory for Fluid Transmission System, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, 310018, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province

Award Identifier / Grant number: 2023C01231

Funding source: National Natural Science Foundation of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 52472387

Award Identifier / Grant number: 52222601

  1. Research ethics: The local Institutional Review Board deemed the study exempt from review.

  2. Informed consent: Not applicable.

  3. Author contributions: All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Guang Zhang conceived and designed this research and wrote the paper; Jinghui Cheng conducted simulation research and wrote the paper; Hanguang Wang processed simulation results; Abhilash Suryan and Zhe Lin provided opinions on the paper. The authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.

  4. Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.

  5. Conflict of interests: The authors state no conflict of interest.

  6. Research funding: This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 52472387 and no. 52222601), and Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (Grant no. 2024C01231) and Zhejiang Sci-Tech University.

  7. Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from the corresponding author.

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Received: 2024-01-16
Accepted: 2024-09-09
Published Online: 2024-12-05

© 2024 the author(s), published by De Gruyter, Berlin/Boston

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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https://doi.org/10.1515/corrrev-2023-0170
Keywords for this article
globe valve; FAC; wall shear stress; corrosion rate; numerical simulation
Creative Commons
BY 4.0

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Reviews
  3. A review on the mechanical and biocorrosion behaviour of iron and zinc-based biodegradable materials fabricated using powder metallurgy routes
  4. Advances in understanding biofilm-based marine microbial corrosion
  5. Progress of material degradation: metals and polymers in deep-sea environments
  6. Theoretical and experimental exploration of organic molecules adsorption on iron surfaces for corrosion inhibition: a review
  7. Original Articles
  8. Evaluation of surface properties of modified Ti6Al4V alloy with copper nanoparticles organic nanostructure for biomedical applications: dependency on anticorrosive, antibacterial, and biocompatibility
  9. Comparison of waterline corrosion of a weathering steel in static and dynamic simulated seawater
  10. Numerical study on characteristics of flow accelerated corrosion in a globe valve under different working conditions
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