Impact of Solid Particulate on Brittle Materials

Abstract

This paper deals with the erosion of brittle materials due to the impact of solid particulate. Erosion tests are characterized by a great uncertainty in the results and high costs. These difficulties led the author to develop alternative methods based on numerical simulations for calculating the erosion rate of brittle and ductile materials. Erosion criteria, based on fracture energy, were developed and implemented as Fortran routines in a commercial FEM code. In this paper the proposed method was applied to calculate the erosion rate of glass and glass ceramics. Fracture energy was obtained using four points bending tests. The numerical results were compared with a developed theoretical model and with the experimental results, available in the literature. In spite of several simplifying assumptions, there was a good agreement between the numerical and experimental results. This method could be a powerful tool for assessing the erosion resistance of components in real operating conditions.