Proceedings of WTC2005
Proceedings of Congress
EFFECT OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF SOLID PARTICLE ON EROSION WEAR OF DUCTILE
MATERIALS
Girish R. Desale Bhupendra K. Gandhi S. C. Jain
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India
ABSTRACT
The present work has been carried out to investigate the
effect of particle shape, density and hardness on erosion wear
of aluminum alloy 6063 (AA6063) and stainless steel 304L (SS
304L) in aqueous mixture of three erodents namely quartz,
alumina and silicon carbide (SiC). The wear of the two
materials has seen maximum with alumina particles and
minimum with quartz particles. Surface topography of the worn
surfaces by scanning electron microscope (SEM) has shown
that the craters formed due to impact of blocky shaped quartz
particles at acute impact angles are flat and short in length
compared to that due to the angular shaped alumina or SiC
particles. This resulted in higher cutting wear by alumina or
SiC particles as compared to the quartz particles.
INTRODUCTION
Erosion wear of ductile type materials generally shows
maximum wear at shallow impact angles (15-30) with a
decreasing trend at either side. The maximum wear depends on
the properties of target and solid materials. Hutchings (1979)
reported that the wear by angular particle at acute impact angles
depends on forward or backward rotational direction of particle
and is similar to the cutting in machining process. He also
proposed that the spherical solid particles at acute impact angle
cause ploughing and displacement of the material to form rim
of crater or terminal lip. Experiments by Bahadur and
Badruddin (1990) have also shown variation in the erosion due
to particle shape. Tsai et al., (1981) observed that the erosion of
steels has increased by 40-100 times by SiC particles compared
to that of coal. Levy and Chik (1983) have found that soft
particles like calcite and apatite cause less wear due to
breaking-up of particles during impact and adherence of small
size attrited particles at the eroded surface. The wear increased
with increase in particle hardness till silica sand (700 kgf/mm2)
and further increase in the hardness did not show any
significant change. Also the wear due to angular steel grits was
observed four times more compared to that by spherical steel
shot. Feng and Ball (1999) have reported that the shape and
kinetic energy of solid particles are the dominant parameters in
case of erosion of ductile materials. Extensive deformation and
fracture due to impact of different size alumina and SiC
particles were reported by Stack and Pungwiwat (1999).
In order to understand the erosivity of impacting solid
particles, a series of experiments in a slurry pot tester has been
carried out with two types of ductile materials using equi-sized
aqueous mixture of three natural erodents. The shape factor of
the erodent particles was determined by an image analyzer. The
mechanism of the material removal is seen through scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) of eroded surfaces.
World Tribology WTC2005 III
2005 ASME World
September Tribology
12-16, 2005, Congress
Washington, III
D.C., USA
September 12-16, 2005, Washington, D.C., USA
WTC2005-63997
WTC2005-63997
EXPERIMENTS AND RANGE OF PARAMETRS
A special designed pot tester of approximately 7 l capacity
developed by Desale et al., (2005) has been used in the present
investigation. A pair of fixtures are used to fix wear specimen
and rotated in a direction opposite to that of a pitched turbine
blade propeller, used for suspension of particles, in order to
achieve uniform distribution of solids. A slotted angular plate is
used to orient the wear specimens at any angle in the range of
0-90 (in step of 15) with respect to the tangential direction of
rotation. Two ductile type materials namely AA6063 and SS
304L were used to prepare wear specimens whose hardness
were 91 Hv and 210 Hv respectively. Three natural erodents
namely quartz, alumina and SiC are used to prepare the mixture
with water. SEM photographs of different erodents shown in
Fig. 1 depicts that the quartz particles are blocky in shape
whereas the other two particles are angular. An image analyzer
Axio Vision 4.1 is used to determine the shape factor and the
average value of the shape factor is given in Table 1. Table 1
also summarizes other physical properties of the erodents
which show large difference in their hardness and density.
Wear specimens are cleaned with tap water, rinsed in
acetone and dried with hot air blower before and after each test.
Mass loss of the wear specimen is measured in an electronic
balance having least count of 0.1 mg. Experiments were
performed for 10% weight concentration of solid particles at
the velocity of 3 m/s using equi-sized particles of 550 m.
Table 1: Physical properties of the erodents
Erodent Hardness (Hv) Density Shape factor
Quartz 1100 2.65 0.7007 (blocky)
Alumina 1800 3.94 0.3425 (Angular)
SiC 2500 3.22 0.4425 (Angular)
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The erosion rate of the two ductile materials at different
orientation angle is presented graphically in Fig. 2. It is seen
that both the materials show maximum wear at shallow angles
with all the three erodents which is in agreement with the
literature (Gandhi et al., 2003). The angle for maximum wear is
15 for AA 6063 and is 22.5 for SS 304L, which could be
attributed to difference in the hardness of the two materials.
However a large variation in the wear of both the materials is
observed with the three erodents. Alumina particles cause
maximum wear whereas quartz particles show minimum wear
at all the angles with similar trends. The difference appears to
be more pronounced at shallow angles compared to the normal
impacts. Further to investigate the wear mechanisms, SEM
1 Copyright 2005 by ASME
photographs of eroded surfaces of AA 6063 are observed and Tsai, W., Humphrey, J. A. C., Cornet, I., 1981. Experimental
presented in Fig. 3(a-c) for maximum wear angle of 15. It is measurement of accelerated erosion in a slurry pot tester,
seen that the craters formed by quartz particles are flat and Wear, Vol. 68, pp. 289-303.
short in length. Due to blocky shape of these particles, the 10
material removal mechanism appears to be ploughing and max=15 Quartz
displacement of materials (Hutchings, 1979). Fig. 3 (b and c) Alumina
8 Silicon carbide
shows formation of deep grooves and long scratches due to AA6063

Erosion Rate, g/g (10-8)

sharp edges of angular particles of alumina and SiC. As shown SS304L

in Fig. 4, two erodents, having same size and density but 6

different shapes, may exhaust same energy at the target surface
under similar conditions but the wear may be different. The
effective radius of contact at the surface gets reduced for 4

angular erodents compare to the spherical particle and the

former results in higher stress intensity, which may be capable 2
to remove large material. Also at acute impact angle, the
chance of skidding of the blocky shaped particles increases in max=22.5
slurry erosion, which may also, reduces the wear by these 0
0 15 30 45 60 75 90
particles. Additionally, the density of alumina and SiC particles Orientation Angle, degree
is also higher compared to quartz, which may also be
Fig. 2: Erosion of AA6063 and SS304L using Quartz, Alumina and
responsible for large wear due to these particles along with SiC at Cw=10%, V=3 m/s, 550 micron particcle size.
their higher hardness and angularity.

CONCLUSION
The physical properties of impacting solid particles play a
dominant role in erosion of ductile materials. Increasing the
target material hardness shows shift in the maximum wear
angle and less material removal. However, increase in density,
hardness and angularity of erodents cause increase in the wear.
The effect of erodent properties is dominant at shallow impact
angles.

REFERENCES
Bahadur, S., and Badruddin, R., 1990. Erodent particle
characterization and the effect of particle size and shape on
erosion, Wear, Vol. 138, pp. 189-208.
Desale, G. R., Gandhi, B. K., Jain, S. C., 2005. Improvement
in the design of a pot tester to simulate erosion wear due to
solid-liquid mixture, Wear (in press).
Feng, Z., and Ball, A., 1999. The erosion of four materials
using seven erodentstowards an understanding, Wear,
Vol. 233-235, pp. 674-684.
Gandhi, B. K., Singh, S. N. Seshadri, V., 2003. A study on the
effect of surface orientation on erosion wear of flat
specimens moving in a solid-liquid suspension Wear, Vol.
254, pp. 1233-1238.
Hutchings, I. M., 1979. Mechanism of the erosion of metals by
solid particles, In: W.F. Adler (Ed). Erosion: Prevention
and Useful Applications. ASTM, pp. 59-76.
Levy, A. V., and Chik, P., 1983. The effects of erodent
composition and shape on the erosion of steel, Wear, Vol.
89, pp. 151-162.
Stack, M. M., and Pungwiwat, N., 1999. Slurry erosion of
metallics, polymers, and ceramics: particle size effects,
Materials Science and Technology Vol. 15, pp. 337-344. Figure 3. SEM photographs of eroded AA6063 at 15 orientation
angle (a) Quartz (b) Alumina (c) Silicon carbide

Figure 4. Energy intensity of spherical and

angular erodents
Figure 1: SEM photographs of erodents 2 Copyright 2005 by ASME