Corrosion failure analyses of an elbow and an elbow-to-pipe weld in a natural gas gathering pipeline

The internal corrosion of a 90° elbow was found in a natural gas gathering pipeline in Northeast China. The welded joint between the elbow and the downstream pipe was also severely corroded. The 90° elbow was forged of 16Mn steel. The downstream pipe (Φ 76mm×9mm) was made of 20G steel. To determine failure causes, the elbow and the welded joint were taken as a whole and investigated systematically. The influence of the flow disturbance induced by the elbow on the damage at the welded joint was considered. The internal damage at the elbow and that at the welded joint were studied using field investigation, visual examination, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), hardness tests, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) techniques. The results showed that erosion corrosion from solid particles and corrosive liquid droplets entrained in the natural gas flow was the main cause of the internal damage at the elbow and the welded joint. The welded joint was attacked by the particles with the highest velocity magnitudes and the most dangerous impact angles. The flow disturbance induced by the elbow, the special location of the welded joint, and the angular misalignment due to poor welding quality jointly caused the substantially more severe damage at the welded joint.