Solid particle erosion behaviour of ferrous and non-ferrous materials and correlation of erosion data with erosion models

The main objective of the present investigation was 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. For this purpose, erosion studies of ferrous and non-ferrous materials have been conducted at different impingement angles (15–90°) and impact velocities (24–52 m/s). It was observed in this study that the erosion peak at about 60° impingement angle has been pronounced at higher impact velocity (52 m/s) for different materials. However at lower impact velocities, for different materials, the curves of steady state erosion rate versus impingement angle were rather shallow. A reasonable agreement between wear coefficients and hardness of the materials has been observed from one of the models developed by Hutchings. Erosion efficiency values (1.5–6%) indicate that microploughing will be the dominating wear mechanism. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) study of eroded surface has revealed different wear mechanisms.