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

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.