An Experimental Investigation on Slurry Erosion Wear Characteristics of Brass Alloy

Abstract

Material loss due to slurry erosion was a serious problem in many industrial applications like hydraulic turbines, slurry pumps, pipe lines, etc. where the ideal choice of engineering materials is a real challenge. Brass alloy was extensively used owing to its reasonable strength and ease of processing. Currently these alloys are also explored as candidate materials for propeller blade of torpedoes where major failure occurs due to slurry erosive wear. In the light of the above present investigation was aimed to study the slurry erosive wear behavior of brass with sand particles slurry. The studies were carried out at different sand concentration (16–28%), varying impact velocity (10-25m/sec), at different impingement angle (30°-75°) and varied impinging particle size (100-400 µm).The rate of material loss was found to be higher with increased sand concentration due to increased impinging action of sand particles. Increased impact velocity of slurry resulted in higher weight loss. Increased in impingement angle up to 60°, the wear rate increases; However beyond this the wear rate decreased. SEM studies were carried out on eroded surface to observe the mechanism of metal removal. The eroded surface also indicates that increased sand concentration, higher rotational speed and increased particle size resulted in severe damage on tested surfaces.