Experimental study on the flow electrification in intact and leak pipelines

Abstract

Pipeline leakage accidents of dielectric liquid often occurs in chemical industry, while the investigations on flow electrification of leakage pipe are few. In this study, experiments were conducted to measure and analyze the streaming current inside the pipe and the leakage current of the pipe wall in both intact and leak pipes. Two kinds of diesel oil, namely the light heavy diesel oil and heavy diesel oil, were selected as the flowing media. Furthermore, an empirical expression of the space charge density and the streaming current based on the modified velocity equation was proposed. The space charge density distribution obtained from the experimental streaming current was compared with the theoretical values. The results show that the space charge density obtained from experiments by the proposed expression is in good agreement with the theoretical value.