Erosion of materials in centrifugal separation

Abstract: Centrifugal separation is a crucial piece of technology, used in a wide range of industries. In cases where solid particles are included in the working medium, erosive wear of componentsinside a centrifugal separator is one of the reasons limiting its service life. In the present work, erosion of some candidate materials of metals, hard metals and polymers were tested to represent the erosive conditions inside a centrifugal separator, and to study the erosion behavior between different material groups. A literature study was conducted to give an overview of the field of erosion, and to evaluate which erosion parameters to consider for testing. A centrifugal erosion test rig was used for the testing, using natural sand, sieved to a size interval of 500 to 700 µm, as erodent, at both 90° and 30° impact angle. Every material was tested at 100 m/s impact velocity, while only metals and polymers were tested at 70 m/s. The erosion rates, volumes of material removed per mass of impinging erodent, were measured and used to rank the candidate materials within each respective material group. Surface analysis of the eroded surfaces were conducted, using SEM, to determine the mechanism of material removal. Relation between erosion resistance, erosion mechanism and material property were investigated.