Development of Correlations for Predicting the Slurry Erosion of Ductile Materials

Material loss due to erosion is a serious problem associated with the flow of solid-liquid mixtures. In the present work, erosion wear tests have been carried out in a slurry pot tester for seven different ductile type materials namely aluminum alloy (AA6063), copper, brass, mild steel, AISI 304L stainless steel, AISI 316L stainless steel, and turbine blade grade steel using three different erodents namely, quartz, alumina, and silicon carbide. Experiments have been performed at different orientation angles of target material at the velocities of 3, 6, and 8.33 m/s for solid concentrations of 10%, 20%, and 30% (by weight) and particle sizes of 363, 550, and 655 mu m. The contribution of cutting wear in the total wear of ductile material at various orientation angles has been determined. It is observed that the maximum cutting wear angle for the ductile material depends on its hardness and a correlation is developed for its prediction. Also a methodology is proposed for estimation of the total erosion wear rate as a contribution of cutting and deformation wear rates. It is seen that this procedure results in an error of +/- 18% in estimation of erosion wear rate for the present experimental data. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4004342]