Experimental Investigation of Erosion of Stainless Steel by Liquid-solid Flow Jet Impingement

Abstract

Erosion of pipeline has in long time been an important issue due to the high particle production rate and watercut in the maturing assets. The present study has been conducted to assess the performance of stainless steel and the effect of various working conditions under high velocity (20ms-1) of liquid-solid jet impingement in various types of media containing 1.5wt% particles in normal water. Cumulative mass loss vs. exposure time was used to evaluate the erosion rate of the stainless steel. The surface and cross-sectional morphologies before and after the erosion tests were observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to illustrate the evolution of erosion process. The effect of fluid impact angle on stainless steel depends on the competitive effect of normal stress and shear stress. Under normal impact, the surface film would be broken and damaged, but still remain on the electrode surface to provide somewhat protection. With the decrease of impact angle, shear stress becomes dominant, and it would thinner and even completely remove the film. The effects of impact angle on steel surface status and erosion rate are confirmed by surface morphology observation.