The toroid wear tester (TWT) is a lab-scale device used for the assessment of slurry erosion in pipelines. Historically, its application has been limited to the relative ranking of material performance under different slurry flow conditions; however, recent studies have indicated that TWT tests could be predictive and directly applied to slurry pipeline design—provided that the flow inside a TWT is better characterized. In the present study, air-liquid multiphase flow inside the TWT was investigated. Torque measurements were taken to characterize friction loss for different air-liquid combinations. A visualization experiment was also conducted to evaluate flow patterns within the TWT. In the experiment, the displacements of spherical glass beads were used to estimate velocity vector fields for different TWT rotational speeds. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was also conducted to complement the experimental measurements. A 3D transient analysis using the volume of fluid (VOF) approach was used to model the system. The simulation results agreed closely with the experimental findings. Furthermore, the simulations revealed that strong secondary flows (back flow, rotation) exist in the TWT. These type of flows do not occur in horizontal pipelines. Therefore, to use the TWT as a tool for slurry pipeline wear assessment, the differences in the flow field between the two systems must be properly quantified.

中文翻译：

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环形磨损测试仪内的流体动力学特性

环形磨损测试仪 (TWT) 是一种实验室规模的设备，用于评估管道中的泥浆侵蚀。从历史上看，它的应用仅限于不同浆料流动条件下材料性能的相对排名；然而，最近的研究表明，行波管测试可以预测并直接应用于泥浆管道设计——前提是行波管内的流动具有更好的特征。在本研究中，研究了行波管内的气液多相流。进行扭矩测量以表征不同空气-液体组合的摩擦损失。还进行了可视化实验来评估行波管内的流动模式。在实验中，使用球形玻璃珠的位移来估计不同行波管转速下的速度矢量场。还进行了计算流体动力学 (CFD) 分析以补充实验测量。使用流体体积 (VOF) 方法的 3D 瞬态分析用于对系统进行建模。模拟结果与实验结果非常吻合。此外，模拟表明行波管中存在强二次流（回流、旋转）。这些类型的流动不会发生在水平管道中。因此，要将行波管用作泥浆管道磨损评估的工具，必须适当量化两个系统之间的流场差异。此外，模拟表明行波管中存在强二次流（回流、旋转）。这些类型的流动不会发生在水平管道中。因此，要将行波管用作泥浆管道磨损评估的工具，必须适当量化两个系统之间的流场差异。此外，模拟表明行波管中存在强二次流（回流、旋转）。这些类型的流动不会发生在水平管道中。因此，要将行波管用作泥浆管道磨损评估的工具，必须适当量化两个系统之间的流场差异。