The effects of hardness of different impacting particles and target materials on slurry erosion wear

Abstract

The effects of target material and erodent’s hardness on erosion wear rate of different ductile materials systematically examined in present study. Accordingly, four different grades of S.S. spherical particles (CrNi, CrLn, CrS and Cr) with similar density (7860 kg/m3) having different hardness (300-500 Hv) were used to impact on four different target materials (AA6063, SS304L, Copper and Brass) at two different orientation angles (i.e. 30° and 90°). The particles of size 362.5 µm with 10% wt. solid concentration are used to impact at 4 m/s velocity on target surface at 30° impact angle for 1 hour test duration. The kinetic energy of impacting particles was kept constant during all experiments by varying test durations for 30° and 90° orientation angles. The maximum erosion wear was observed from all four target materials due to impact of higher hardness of Cr grade S.S. particles as compared to other three grades of S.S. erodent (i.e. CrNi, CrLn, and Crs) at both 30° and 90° impact angles. On the other side the higher hardness of SS304L target material having more resisting effect on erosion wear as compared to other three target materials. This shows that the hardness of striking particles and target material having adverse effect on erosion wear from target surface. However, the hardness ratio represents the erosion wear of different possible combinations of erodent and target surfaces. The average mass loss from target surface increases with increasing the hardness ratio of erodent and target material. This reveals the material loss from target surface is a strong function of hardness ratio and could be used for developing the empirical relation. Scanning electron microscopic images also shows the difference in craters geometries formed on different hardness of target materials.