Energy dissipation into ductile surfaces by spherical zirconia bead at different impact conditions during erosion

Material is removed from ductile surface by the action of cutting and deformation mechanisms during solid particle erosion. It has been known that unit energy is required to remove unit mass of material from the surface which is constant for particular impact condition such as impact velocity. But it is always hard to calculate the exact amount of energy absorbed into the surface during erosion. In this paper, we studied the erosion phenomenon of two ductile materials, mild steel and aluminium. Surfaces have been impacted by spherical zirconia bead at different impact velocities from 20-40 ms-1 at normal impact angle with fixed particle flux. A high-speed video camera was used to measure the impact and rebound velocities accurately during erosion. Energy absorbed into the surface is calculated from the difference between incident and rebound particle kinetic energy. Erosion mechanisms have been studied using scanning electron microscopy and the relationships between absorbed energy and wear mechanisms have been discussed