THE EFFECT OF PARTICLE SHARPNESS ON THE WEAR OF BACKFILL PIPELINES

The relationships between backfill-transportation parameters (solids c oncentration, velocity, and pipe diameter) and the wear rate of backfi ll-transportation pipelines is well understood. However, the degree of wear experienced by a pipeline depends not only on the transportation parameters, but also on the characteristics of the solids making up t he backfill, i.e. the particle-size distribution, hardness, shape, and sharpness of the particles. Therefore, unless data corresponding to t he specific wear rate of the solids are available, the determination o f the wear rate for pipes transporting an uncharacterized backfill is largely guesswork. This paper describes an evaluation of particle char acteristics with special reference to particle sharpness so that pipe wear rates can be correlated with solids of different size distributio ns and sharpnesses.