# Design and Material Optimization of Oil Plant Piping Structure for Mitigating Erosion Wear
## 1 Introduction  
Conventional crude oil, which can be found underground or on the seabed mainly in Canada, Middle East, Central Asia, and East Asia, has the disadvantage of a high exploration risk [1, 2, 3]. Therefore, many methods are being developed to extract oil from non-conventional oil rather than pure crude oil. Non-conventional energy resources, including oil, have attracted attention since oil prices started rising in 2003 and are deposited over a larger area than pure conventional crude oil [4, 5, 6]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] investigated non-conventional oil production methods and concluded that among other methods, Expanding Solvent-Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (ES-SAGD) is an innovative oil extraction technology, which has a lot of potential for in-situ development of bitumen resources, whichis a black, sticky, extra-heavy crude oil and is recovered by injecting steam, as shown in Figure 1[7]. However, if a defect occurs in the piping that transports bitumen, a major economic and safety problem arises. These defects include cracks, plastic deformations, brittle failure, containment loss, and equipment malfunction and even failure, resulting in an oil leak and other environmental calamities due to fatigue and erosion [8; 9; 10]. The continuous challenge of erosion in piping is encountered across various industrial sectors whenever solid particles are transported [11; 12; 13; 14]. A non-conventional oil plant, shown in Figure 1, was constructed in Yeoncheon, South Korea for research purposes and the same is taken as a baseline in the current study of erosion in piping structure. The inside of the piping that transports non-conventional oil contains bitumen, which contains a large amount of solid substances such as sand. When solid substances pass inside the piping structure, the solid substances may scratch the surface of the piping, act as abrasive, and cause wear and erosion, which can negatively impact the quality of the final products.  
[PERSON] defines erosion as the progressive loss of material by repetitive deformation and cutting action [15]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] stated that by changing the piping design layout, erosion wear can be minimized [16]. Following an in-depth examination of the existing literature, numerous variables were identified as direct contributors to piping erosion. For this study the focus narrowed down to four key variables: piping material, piping thickness, elbow angle, and fluid velocity. Based on each variable, multiple simulation cases were made to encounter erosion rates by altering each variable. [PERSON] highlighted in his research that CFD based modeling is highly recommended for assessing and solving problems that include fluid flow [17; 18; 19]. It was employed by many researchers as an erosion prediction tool in oil field piping structures, as CFD can handle complex fluid flows involving turbulence, heat transfer, and chemical reactions. This makes it suitable for studying a wide range of engineering problems, including those of multiphase interactions contains solid particles in fluid. Also, in the present study, for analyzing each case, simulations were performed using CFD-based erosion modeling with the commercial software Ansys Fluent 2022, which was utilized in various past research for investigating fluid flows [20; 21; 22]. In the present study, CFD-based erosion modeling was employed using the Euler-Lagrange model together with the standard k-\(\epsilon\) model and then the Discrete Phase Model (DPM) was utilized [23; 24; 25]. The primary goal of this research was to make an optimized piping structure. This paper will present the TDRs and ERs in piping structure, which already used in Yeoncheon Oil Plant and will be optimized after performing multiple simulation cases of different variables, which affect the erosion wear.