Erosive-abrasive wear modeling of a water jet pump in a slurry medium

In the study, water jet pump transfers the slurry in the well through pipe system to centrifugal pump. Sand-water mixture causes amount of material loss in the water jet pump structure computed by a software program. The purpose of the study is to determine the most critical part in the water jet pump. The wear amount is affected by many parameters such as sand particle diameter, mass flow rate of abrasive and inlet velocity. So, it is investigated that the wear amount on the jet pump is changed according to sand percentage in the well water, inlet velocity and erodent diameter. Mass flow rates of sand have a value of 0.097 kg/s for w.p. % 5, 0.194 kg/s for w.p. % 10, 0.291 kg/s for w.p. % 15 at an inlet velocity of 3.98 m/s. The maximum erosion wear rate is raised from 2.26x10-4 kg/(s m2) to 6.84x10-8 kg/s2m2 for inlet velocities of 1.99 m/s, 3.98 and 7.96 m/s, respectively for the case of weight percentages of %15 in Finnie erosion wear model. Finnie, Mclaury, Generic and Oka erosion models have been compared. It is found that Mclaury’s erosion model demonstrates the highest erosion value of 1.38x10-3 kg/(s m2) for w.p. % 15 at 3.98 m/s inlet velocity for the erodent diameter of 0.0005m in all. It is claimed that erosive wear has been concentrated on the nozzle of the water jet pump. The wear rate can be predicted as straightforwardly for different conditions.