Erosion and Abrasive Machining

Erosion from solid particles — whether suspended in slurries, carried by high-pressure waterjets, or entrained in fluid flows — gradually degrades the surfaces of pipelines, hydro turbines, and industrial machinery in ways that are difficult to predict and costly to ignore. Researchers combine controlled laboratory experiments with computational fluid dynamics simulations to understand how particle size, velocity, impact angle, and fluid chemistry interact to determine how quickly a given material wears away or corrodes. A persistent challenge is bridging the gap between idealized single-particle models and the complex, multi-phase conditions found in real systems — such as turbulent slurry flows through curved pipe bends or the pitted runner blades of a hydroelectric turbine operating in sediment-laden rivers. Active work is pushing toward erosion-resistant material designs and more accurate predictive models that account for coupled erosion-corrosion effects, where chemical degradation and mechanical wear accelerate each other in ways neither process would produce alone.

Works

20,710

Total citations

212,941

Keywords

ErosionSolid ParticleAbrasive Waterjet MachiningCorrosionSlurry ErosionCFD Simulation