Determination of particle impacts and impact energy in the erosion of X65 carbon steel using acoustic emission technique

An in-situ acoustic emission (AE) monitoring technique has been implemented in a submerged jet impingement (SIJ) system in an effort to investigate the effect of sand particle impact on the degradation mechanism of X65 carbon steel pipeline material in erosion conditions. A detailed analysis of the acoustic events' count rate enabled the number of impacts per second to be quantified for a range of flow velocities (7, 10, 15 m/s) and solid loadings (0, 50, 200, 500 mg/L) in a nitrogen-saturated solution at 50 °C. The number of impacts obtained from acoustic signals showed a strong agreement with theoretical prediction for flow velocities 7 and 10 m/s. A deviation between practical readings and theory is observed for flow velocity of 15 m/s which may be due to error from detected emissions of multiple rebounded particles. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used in conjunction with particle tracking to model the impingement system and predict the velocity and impact angle distribution on the surface of the sample. Data was used to predict the kinetic energy of the impacts and was correlated with the measured AE energy and material loss from gravimetric analysis. The results demonstrate that AE is a useful technique for quantifying and predicting the erosion damage of X65 pipeline material in an erosion-corrosion environment.