**Solid Particle Erosion on Different Metallic Materials**

Juan R. Laguna-Camacho, M. Vite-Torres, E.A. Gallardo-Hernández and E.E. Vera-Cárdenas

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/51176

## **1. Introduction**

62 Tribology in Engineering

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> Testing on ferrous and non-ferrous materials has been widely carried out to study their erosion resistance. Venkataraman & Sundararajan [1] conducted a study about the solid particle erosion of copper at a range of low impact velocities. In this particular case, the eroded surface was completely covered with the erosion debris in the form of flakes or platelets. These flakes appeared to be completely separated or fractured from the material surface and were flattened by subsequent impacts. For this reason, it was concluded that at low impact velocities the erosion damage was characterized mainly by lip or platelet fracture whereas it was distinguished with lip formation (rather than its subsequent fracture) at higher impact velocities.

> Additionally, studies on the erosion behaviour of AISI 4140 steel under various heat treatment conditions was investigated by Ambrosini & Bahadur [2]. In this work, the investigation was concentrated on the effect of various microstructures and mechanical properties on the erosion resistance. A constant velocity of 50 m/s was used for all the erosion tests. The target was impacted at an angle of 30º to the specimen surface, the particle feed rate was 20 g/min, SiC particles, 125 µm in size, were used as the abrasive. From the results, it was concluded that erosion rate increases with increasing hardness and ultimate strength, but decreases with increasing ductility. In this particular work, the heat treatment with the optimum combination of erosion resistance and mechanical properties was oil quenching followed by tempering in the temperature range 480-595 ºC for 2 h. In addition, SEM studies presented severe plastic deformation in the eroded zones together with abrasion marks, indicating that material subjected to erosion initially undergoes plastic deformation and is later removed by abrasion.

© 2013 Laguna-Camacho et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2013 Laguna-Camacho et al., licensee InTech. This is a paper distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Harsha & Bhaskar [3] carried out research to study the erosion behaviour of ferrous and non-ferrous materials and also to examine the erosion model developed for normal and oblique impact angles by Hutchings [4]. The materials tested were aluminium, brass, copper, mild steel, stainless steel and cast iron. They determined from the SEM studies that the worn surfaces had revealed various wear mechanisms such as microploughing, lip formation, platelet, small craters of indentation and microcracking.

Solid Particle Erosion on Different Metallic Materials 65

máx. Cr Ni V Cu Mo Pb Zn Ti

10.50 - - - -


0.40 -

0.25 - -

3.00 - -

Máx.

máx.

0.25 Máx .

Rem . -

Rem . -

0.1 5 Má x.

1.10 - - 0.15-

0.90 - 0.040 0.50 - - - - - - -

8.00-

10.00 - 14.00

0.35 0.15-

16.00 - 18.00

16.00 - 18.00

420 0.38 0.40 0.45 - - - 13.60 - 0.30 - - - -

1.20 - - 0.04-

Brass - - - - - - - - - 55.84 - 0.05

Copper - - - - - - - - - 87.66 - 0.05

ground using SiC emery paper grade 1200. The average roughness (Ra) in each specimen before testing was 1 m. The samples had a rectangular shape with dimensions of 50 x 25 mm2 and 3 mm in thickness. The abrasive particle used was silicon carbide (SiC) of an angular shape, as seen in Figure 1, with a particle size of 420-450 µm [8]. Table 1 presents the chemical composition of the materials used in the erosion tests whereas Table 2 shows the hardness of the materials. Microhardness values were obtained by calculating an average

value, 10 different points were measured. The applied load was 100gf.

**Figure 1.** Size and morphology of the abrasive particles [8]

0.75-

0.60-

304 0.08 1.00 2.00 - - -

316 0.08 1.00 2.00 - - -

Máx.

0.80-

máx.

1.00 - 0.035 0.040 0.80-

S

Material C Si Mn Mg <sup>P</sup>

0.15- 0.35

0.15- 0.35

0.82 - 0.15

**Table 1.** Chemical composition of materials

<sup>4140</sup>0.38-

<sup>1018</sup>0.15-

Aluminiu m 6061

0.43

0.20

0.40-

In addition to these studies, Morrison & Scattergood [5] carried out erosion tests on 304 stainless steel. In this work, it was concluded from the SEM observations that similar morphologies for low and high impact angles could be observed in ductile metals when they were subjected to the impact of sharp particles. The surfaces displayed a peak-andvalley topology together with attached platelet mechanisms. In addition, the physical basis for a single-mechanism to erosion in ductile metals was considered to be related to shear deformations that control material displacement within a process zone for a general set of impact events producing at all impact angles. These events included indentation, ploughing and cutting or micromachining. In respect to the effect of the erodent particle shape on solid particle erosion, Hutchings showed differences in eroded surfaces due to a shape particle effect [6]. It was observed that the shape of abrasive particles influences the pattern of plastic deformation around each indentation and the proportion of material displaced from each indentation, which forms a rim or lip. More rounded particles led to less localized deformation, and more impacts were required to remove each fragment of debris.

Liebhard & Levy [7] conducted a study related to the effect of erodent particle characteristics on the erosion of 1018 steel. Spherical glass beads of four different diameter ranges between 53-600 µm and angular SiC of nine different diameter ranges between 44-991 µm were the erodents. The particle velocities were 20 and 60 m/s, an impact angle of 30º was used to conduct all the tests and the feed rate was varied from 0.6 to 6 g/min. The results showed that there was a big difference in the erosivity of the spherical and angular particles as a function of particle size. Angular particles generally were an order of magnitude more erosive than spherical particles. In addition, the erosivity of spherical particles increased with particle size to a peak and then decrease at even larger particle sizes. In respect to angular particle erosivity, it was increased with particle size to a level that became nearly constant with size at lower velocities, but increased continuously at higher particle velocities. Lower flow rates caused more mass loss than higher flow rates for both spherical and angular particles.

In this work, the performance of different metallic materials has been analyzed. The aim of this experimentation was essentially to know the behavior of these materials against solid particle erosion and compare their erosion resistance. In addition, the functionality of both, the rig and the velocity measurement method was evaluated.
