Erosion applications (Mechanical wear prediction and prevention pp.

533) 08/03/17

Wear design has been used for a variety of applications involving erosion. Several
examples illustrate a range of approaches. Some of them analytical approaches was
applied. The others used more empirical approaches. In all of the cases, the wear
design started with system analysis, which provided an operational characterization
or definition of the wear situation.

08/03/17 (pp. 533)

One example of the use of wear design in erosive situation involves the development
of a turbine generator used in a coal gasification process power generation. System
analysis indicated that in the region of stator and rotor blades would be exposed to
erosion by coal ash and dolomite sulphur sorbent particles contained in the gas
stream. It was assumed that the wear behaviour could be described by the general
equations for erosion which combine the effects of ductile and brittle behaviour.

𝝅∝ 𝒏
𝒆(𝒕) = [𝒌𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒔𝒏 ∝ 𝑺𝒆𝒏 ( ) 𝒗 + 𝒌𝒃 𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒎 ∝ 𝒗𝒎 ]𝑴 ∝≤ 𝜷𝟎 (𝟏)
𝟐𝜷𝟎

𝒆(𝒕) = (𝒌𝒅 𝒗𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒔𝒏 ∝ +𝒌𝒃 𝒗𝒎 𝑺𝒆𝒏𝒎 ∝)𝑴 ∝≥ 𝜷𝟎 (𝟐)

These equations involve several empirical coefficients that are material and
environment dependent. At the time the design study was undertaken there was very
little data and information available regarding the wear properties and wear
coefficients for super alloy turbine materials being considered, particularly under the
application conditions involved. However for similar quantities and ranges of particle
size, there was data for silicon carbide eroding a nickel-cobalt alloy of the type being
considered in the application. Also, there was available some data about comparative
erosiveness of coal ash and silicon carbide. This data indicated that coal ash had 1/25
the erosiveness of silicon carbide particles. Assumptions like environmental effect can
be small for the alloy used in turbine and material resistance of this material would be
equal or better than nickel-cobalt were made. With this data and assumptions was
estimated the coefficient of the equations. It was recognized that there was
considerable risk associated with these assumptions so programs were initiated to
determine the values of these coefficients for the materials and conditions involved.

As indicated by these equations, the erosion rate is also a function of particle velocity
and impingement angle. So, it is necessary to determine the motion of the particles
(ash) through the turbine blades, which is affected by fluid flow, as well as particles
size and mass. The flow of the gas is assumed to by unaffected by the particles, while
the motion of the particles is affected by the flow of the fluid (drag). The flow was
considered to be inviscid (negligible viscosity) and the particles were assumed to be
spherical and only subjected to drag and inertial force.