Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

1998

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Kenneth Means.

Abstract

Metals and alloys designed for machines at elevated temperatures have microstructures and chemistries optimized to provide strength and resistance to oxidation. The majority of the commercial high temperatures metal or alloys intended to use at temperatures below 850°C or so rely on the formation of a continuous surface layer of essentially oxide scale for further oxidation resistance. Erosion of these machine parts by the small solid particle entrained in the liquid or gaseous working environment is a serious problem in many industrial applications. Numerous experiments have been conducted to obtain empirical relations for predicting material loss during erosion and to arrive at an appropriate material for a particular working environment. Arrival of many new materials and surface coatings being used for different applications demand analytical models that are more generic in applying and predicting the volume loss due to erosion. The current thesis work is focused on finite element modeling that takes into account various boundary conditions and predicts the loss of material due to erosion.;Two models, aluminum oxide model and iron/iron-oxide model were developed using IDEAS and analyzed using LS-DYNA3D. The aluminum oxide model was used to validate the computational model with the experimental work of Allan Levy. The results indicated the correlation with the experimental observations. The same procedure is extended to estimate the material loss for iron/iron-oxide model. Several parameters such as size of the erodent, temperature, velocity of the erodent, angle of attack were varied and the influence on volume loss of oxide layer was studied. The results were presented in the form of stress contours and the graphs between the volume loss in mm3 and the parameter affecting erosion.

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