Surface roughness investigation of ultrafine-grained aluminum alloy subjected to high speed erosion

This work presents first attempts to study influence of severe plastic deformation (SPD) procedure on material surface performance in high speed erosion conditions. Ultrafine-grained Aluminum alloy samples (after high pressure torsion) and were subjected to intensive erosion by corundum particles together with their coarse-grained counterparts. Particles were 100 μm and were accelerated via air flow up to 40-200 m/s velocities in a special experimental setup. Surface roughness measurements were performed to compare surface properties of SPD-processed and original samples. Additionally, SPD processing appeared to increase noticeably threshold velocity of the surface fracture process. A structural analysis of fracture surfaces was carried out on the samples in initial state and after erosion with different intensities.