Evaluation of Erosion Equations for Small Particles

Previous work by Lin et al. (at E/CRC) examined the effect of various particle parameters such as particle size, shape and flowrates in gas impingement testing on stainless steel 316. These tests were performed with four different particles (75 µm, 150 µm, 300 µm, and 600 µm) at two different angles: 15° and 90° at a particle velocity of 24 m/s and at particle rate of 0.53 g/s. It was observed that there was an unclear trend in erosion results because of different particle sizes and shapes. To avoid the effect of particle shape, sharpness factor was used to modify the erosion results of different particles. It was observed that there was a decrease in modified erosion ratio as the particle size increases for 15° impact angle. The modified erosion ratio for 75 µm (angular) particles was found to be higher than the 150 µm and 300 µm particles (semi-rounded) at normal impact angle, which is still inexplicit.

In order to overcome the effect of the particle shape on erosion, particles of uniform sharpness with different particle sizes were used. For future work, the erosion experiments will be conducted with utmost care and skill to examine the effect of particle size on erosion with angular quartz particles at various angles. This study will help in the validation of the existing erosion model and contributes the improved results towards the expansion of SPPS 1D and 2D.