EROSION ANALYSIS OF INNER BODY VALVE WITH PT. MITSUBISHI CHEMICAL INDONESIA (MCCI)
Using Computational Fluid dynamics method to examine the root cause of an erosion and find the solution
A few details
Project Description
PT. Mitsubishi Chemical Indonesia (MCCI) producing various chemical products, which in the production process involving fluid machineries units. One of the component to control the production process is a valve with plug which can be adjusted back and forth to control the mass flow rate of the system.
To prevent leakage within the plug gap, the high pressurised sealing fluid is used; this high pressure also prevent the back-flow of the production fluid. (the parts diagram illustrates bellow).
After years of operation, the erosion happens in the vicinity of the gap between the plug and the main body. This erosion causes a stuck of plug movement which disturb overall production.
This phenomena involves a lot of complex flow interactions, hence makes this problem hard to solve with manual analytical procedure or even hard to imagine intuitively.
How we solved it
Our approach
In this case, PT. MCCI with our team (AE Services) examining the root cause of the erosion using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with openFOAM software which has capabilities to be used in such cases.
The CFD simulation result shows a detailed flow pattern, which easily can ben used to analyse the problem root cause. Moreover, we can easily modify the operating conditions such as mass flow rate, temperature, pressure, etc. then “see” the effect in the erosion rate or even the overall flow performance.
