Study of Slurry Erosive Wear on Epoxy Fiber Reinforced Polymers

Abstract

Hydro turbines are widely used as a machine to convert the mechanical energy of water to obtain useful work. The blades which are the moving parts of a hydro turbine are under constant wear due to sand and other particulate matter suspended in water. Consequently, loss of material from the turbine results in distortion of the geometry of the blades which in turn causes fluctuation in the power output. The main focus of the presented research work was the development of needle-punch non-woven fiber reinforced epoxy composites and study the slurry erosive wear of the newly developed composite, which could replace steel as a blade material. Environmental hazard/waste-marble powder, was used in four different weight percentages as an additive to the composites. The proposed composites were fabricated by simple hand-lay-up techniques in the casting laboratory. The four different marble particulate filled (0 wt.%, 3 wt.%, 6 wt.% and 9 wt.%) fiber reinforced epoxy composites were studied for weight-loss due to wear in a steady state (time-independent) condition with respect to impact velocity and the angle of impingement. The results showed that at a higher impact velocity, the amount of erosive weight-loss became 9.5 times as compared to a sample impinged with a lower impact velocity having the same composition and at the same angle of impingement. Similarly, as far as the angle of impingement was concerned, at 45 degrees the wear loss was more as compared to that at 90 degrees. Finally, to know the wear loss and its mechanism the topography of the eroded samples was studied under a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

Team

Members:

Karsh Tharyani B.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur

Anubhav Kashyap B.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur

Aakansha Baisla B.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur