Development of an erosion testing machine

Abstract

An erosion tester is normally used to study the relative erosion behavior of different materials at moderate solid concentrations. Uniform distribution of solids and turbulence inside the container are generally the problems with the erosion tester and thus the data generated have limited application for quantitative analysis. In the present work, an existing mechanical stirrer has been converted into a slurry erosion tester by designing and fabricating a specimen holding arrangement for cylindrical and flat specimen by taking suitable dimensions according to experimental needs. Using this slurry erosion tester experiments can be carried out for investigating the wear characteristics of various materials which are subjected to slurry erosion. The machine has been tested by taking slurry of mud in a stainless steel container to find the rate of mass loss of an aluminium sample. This machine can be used for carrying out experiments on various samples of different materials which are subjected to slurry erosion by taking different types of slurries to find out the wear characteristics of the material by measuring the rate of mass loss with respect to various parameters like Slurry concentration, Speed of rotation, distance traversed and time.