Erosion-Corrosion Testing of Materials in the Prediction of Wear of Hydrotransport Pipelines in Oil Sands Slurries

Pipe wear remains diffficult to predict because of the complexity of the wear process, which is affected by parameters such as pipeline material, slurry flow, solids loading, solids size distribution, slurry chemistry, erosion, corrosion, and their interactions.  Extreme conditions experienced by components used in oil sands mining operations, require the utilization of a wide range of protective materials that afford high levels of both wear and corrosion resistance.  A slurry jet testing apparatus, more closely mimics the wet erosion phenomena found in oil sands applications than conventional abrasion test methods.  Results and analyses from testing a range of materials including alloys, tungsten carbide based overlays and polymeric materials are presented.

Experimental laboratory techniques such as the slurry jet, are extremely useful to promote a mechanistic understanding of erosion-corrosion and wear, are cost effective, and provide wear performance rankings for different materials. However, for quantitative predictions of pipeline wear in the field, wear and erosion-corrosion contributions must fully consider slurry flow characteristics.  The construction and commissioning of a flow loop is discussed and an approach to simulate industrial slurry pipelines is presented.