Numerical Simulation and Analytical Prediction of Residual Strength for Elbow Pipes with Erosion Defects

Abstract

It is well known that the safety and reliability of pipeline transportation are crucial. We are aiming at the problem that the residual life and residual strength of the defective elbow pipes are difficult to predict and usually need to be obtained through experiments. Consequently, a combined method of numerical simulation technology combined with a genetic algorithm to optimize neural network extreme learning machine (GA-ELM) is proposed. Firstly, the erosion characteristics of elbow pipes with different defects under the conditions of different impurity particle flow rates, particle sizes, and mass flow rates are analyzed by numerical simulation. At the same time, the effects of erosion defects of different sizes on the equivalent stress and residual strength of elbow pipes are also studied. Based on numerical simulation data, the extreme learning machine prediction model optimized by a genetic algorithm is used to predict the erosion rate, residual life, and residual strength and compared with the traditional ELM network model. The results show that residual strength of the elbow pipes with the increase of the depth and length of the defect, and increases with the increase of the width of the defect; the GA-ELM model can not only effectively predict the erosion rate, residual life and residual strength of defective elbow pipes, moreover its prediction accuracy is better than the traditional ELM model.