Characteristic and Erosion Study of Uncoated Sand Proppant Using Impingement Test

The characterization and properties of sand from beaches in Malaysia that has potential to be used as proppant in hydraulic fracturing was investigated through impingement tests. Eight sand samples were obtained from eight different locations in Malaysia; three samples from West Coastal beaches (Selangor) and five from East Coastal beaches (Kelantan). These impingement tests were conducted by varying several parameters i.e. size ranges of sand, type of targeted metal and distance of nozzle standoff from target. In these tests, air was fed through an acrylic pipe with inner diameter of 8 mm and 4 m length at gas velocity of 100 m/s and flow rate of 200 l/min. 250 g of sand samples were fed in compressed air stream and the samples were projected toward targeted metal i.e. mild steel and aluminium with a 90° of impingement angle. These tests were conducted at different separation distance of 0.5, 2.5 and 5.0 inches of nozzle and target. The results were analysed by measuring the mass loss of the metals after impingement and the images of the impinged metals were captured using camera. The highest metal loss was obtained when the targeted metal was impacted with the largest size range of sand samples. The mass loss of mild steel ranged from 0.03 to 0.16 g and 0.10 to 0.22 g for aluminium, at a variable distance between the nozzle and metal target due to higher hardness of mild steel than aluminium. The mass loss reduced when the distance between nozzle and metal target increased due to energy loss because of the inter particle collision.