The soft overcoming the hard-an erosion control method for elbow: Experiments and numerical simulations.

A novel approach to alleviate erosion by adding water, based on the principle of the soft overcoming the hard, was investigated through self-designed erosion experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The results demonstrate that adding a liquid phase to the elbow significantly reduces the erosion rate. The erosion inhibition efficiency is positively correlated with the liquid phase content, reaching 81.56 % in the most severe erosion zone during the experiments. The liquid film can increase the drag force and reduce the particles' impact velocity. Rather than exacerbating erosion, the liquid film enables easier particle accumulation and mitigates erosion instead. • Adding the liquid phase can effectively alleviate the erosion of the elbow. • The inhibition efficiency is positively correlated with the liquid content. • Liquid film can significantly reduce the particles' impact velocity. • The aggregation of particles in the liquid film does not aggravate erosion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]