Monitoring acoustic emission (AE) energy in slurry impingement using a new model for particle impact

• Application of acoustic emission (AE) to the monitoring a slurry jet.
• Rejection of background noise due to fluid–surface interaction.
• Extension of use of PDFs to describe the AE energy per particle.
• Based on particle AE signatures for relatively sparse dry streams applied to slurry.

A series of systematic impact tests have been carried out to investigate the influence of particle size, free stream velocity, particle impact angle, and nominal particle concentration on the amount of energy dissipated in a carbon steel target using a slurry impingement erosion test rig, as indicated by the acoustic emission (AE) recorded by a sensor mounted on the back of the target. Silica sand particles of mean particle size 152.5, 231, and 362.5 μm were used for impingement on the target at angles varying between 30° and 90° while the free stream velocity was changed between 4.2 and 12.7 m/s.In previous work by the authors, it was demonstrated that the AE time series associated with particle-laden air striking a carbon steel target could be described as the cumulation of individual particle arrival events each drawn from a statistical distribution model. The high arrival rate involved in a slurry jet poses challenges in resolving individual particle impact signatures in the AE record, and so the model has been extended in this paper to account for different particle carrier-fluids and to situations where arrivals cannot necessarily be resolved.