Particle-based numerical simulation study of solid particle erosion of ductile materials leading to an erosion model, including the particle shape effect

Solid particle erosion inevitably occurs if a gas-solid or liquid-solid mixture is in contact with a surface, e.g., in pneumatic conveyors. Having a good understanding of this complex phenomenon enables one to reduce the maintenance cost in several industrial applications by designing components that have longer lifetime. In this paper, we propose a methodology in order to numerically investigate erosion behavior of ductile materials. We employ smoothed particles hydrodynamics that can easily deal with large deformations and fracture as a truly meshless method. In addition, a new contact model is developed in order to robustly handle contacts around sharp corners of the solid particles. The numerical predictions of erosion are compared with experiments for stainless steel AISI 304 showing t hat we are able to properly predict the erosion behavior as a function of impact angle. We present a powerful tool to conveniently study the effect of important parameters such as solid particle shape which are not simple to study in experiments. Using the methodology, we study the effect of solid particle shape and conclude that in addition to angularity, aspect ratio also plays an important role by increasing the probability of the solid particles to rotate after impact. Finally, we are able to extend a widely used erosion model by a term which considers solid particle shape.