Fouling characteristics of 90° elbow in high salinity wastewater from coal chemical industry

Due to the high salt content of coal chemical wastewater, pipeline fouling often occurs during wastewater treatment. Fouling will cause the diameter of the pipe to shrink or even block, which is not conducive to the safe and stable operation of the wastewater treatment process. In this paper, the experimental device was designed by using FLUENT software and the fouling deposition mechanisms at different flow velocities and different positions in a 90 deg bend were studied. The experimental results show that when the flow velocity is between 0.2 m·s~(-1) and 0.3 m·s~(-1), the thickness of fouling layer was positively correlated with the flow velocity; when the flow velocity is equal to 0.4 m·s~(-1), the formation of fouling is the most serious; when the flow velocity is between 0.4 m·s~(-1) and 0.7 m·s~(-1), the thickness of fouling layer was negative correlation with the flow velocity; with the increase of inlet velocity, the time for sediment point to develop into sediment surface is shortened. The fouling layer is easy to fall off because of the large shear force on the wall surface of the inner bend of the 90° elbow, so the density of sediment at this position is high.