Experimental evaluation of pipe wall thinning characteristics downstream of an orifice for an asymmetric swirling flow generated in a three-dimensionally- connected elbow piping as the inflow condition

Flow visualization experiment and accelerated pipe wall thinning experiment were conducted by applying a swirling flow generated by a piping configuration, three-dimensionally connected dual elbow, to the inlet flow condition of a pipe orifice to investigate pipe wall thinning downstream of an orifice appearing due to the combination of swirling flow and orifice. The flow downstream of the orifice was curved by the action of the swirling flow, and the channel wall where the flow turned off toward underwent a large amount of wall thinning. Profiles of turbulent quantities, such as turbulent kinetic energy and Reynolds shear stress, were compared to those of amount of pipe wall thinning. It was found that the profiles of Reynolds shear stress showed good agreement with those of pipe wall thinning in the case for a large amount of that. However, relatively small amount of pipe wall thinning, any profile related to fluid motion could not explain the profiles of pipe wall thinning.